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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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Chap. __ Copyright No. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 




ESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

TO THE 

EN OF TO-MORROW 



BY 

GEO. C. LORIMER, D. D. 

Minister at Tremont Temple 



Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 



V 



V 



PHILADELPHIA 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 

MDCCCXCVI 



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Copyright 1896 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 



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6 



t; PREFATORY 



Immense have been the preparations for me^ 
Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me. 
Cycles ferried my cradle^ rowing and rowing like cheerful boat- 
men, 
For room to me stars kept in their own rings, 
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. 
All forces have been steadily employed to co^nplete and delight m.e. 

In these words Walt Whitman sings of the vast 
preparations made in the universe for the reception 
of humanity. And he might also have pictured 
the past centuries as consecrating all of their 
achievements, whether in peace or in war, in liter- 
ature or in discovery, in commerce or in art, to the 
making ready of this world for the appearance of 
the man of to-morrow. Certainly no generation 
has entered into so precious a heritage as the one 
which now awaits the new-comer. Dean Farrar, 
writing of the unequaled opportunities enjoyed by 
the present age, exclaims : '* For us Plato and 
Shakespeare thought ; for us Dante and Milton 
sang ; for us Bacon and Newton toiled ; for us 
Angelo and Raphael painted ; for us Benedict and 
Francis lived saintly lives ; for the heritage of our 
liberty have myriads of heroes perished on the 
battlefield, and for the purity of our religion hun- 
dreds of martyrs sighed away their souls amid the 



VI PREFATORY 

flames." ^ But these treasures and possessions have 
been wonderfully augmented during the hundred 
years now closing by rich contributions from bril- 
liant leaders in every department of activity ; and 
it follows, if environment means to the individual 
what certain theorists, like Buckle maintain, then 
the men of to-morrow ought to surpass their prede- 
cessors in greatness and goodness. 

Unhappily, however, there is no necessary and 
uniform connection between favoring circumstances 
and human perfection and happiness. The holiest 
surroundings do not of themselves make saints ; 
and academic and commercial advantages of the 
highest order do not ensure to the community ripe 
scholars or successful merchants. The extent of 
the preparations made for the reception of a new 
generation only determines the measure of its op- 
portunity and responsibility, and is in nowise a 
prophecy of their actual and ultimate power. God 
fitted up this earth as an Eden for man, and man' 
converted it into a field of blood ; and the talent, 
genius, and heroism of all the centuries have been 
shaping society for the well-being of the next ; but 
whether the immediate future will fulfill its promise 
can only be decided by the people of the future 
themselves. 

Goethe exhorts : "Make good thy standing- 
ground and move the world ;" and Thomas Carlyle 
quaintly completes the admonition when he warns 
some of his readers not to be " a passive bucket to 
be pumped into." We surely owe it to God and 

^ "Silence and Voices of God," p. 13. 



PREFATORY Vll 

to the past if vast preparations have been made for 
us, to adequately prepare on our own part that we 
may fittingly avail ourselves of all the advantages 
placed within our reach. This is at least one of the 
lessons taught in the story of the ''two camels," 
which Browning groups with other of *' Ferishtah's 
Fancies." The patient burden-bearers of the desert 
are described by the poet as getting ready each in 
different fashion for his journey from Nishapur to 
Sebzevah. The first is abstemious. He will not 
trouble to lay up store for future need. His master 
shall be saved from undue expense. A little mouldy 
bran is all that he will eat. Alas ! for his miserable 
folly. He soon breaks down for lack of nourish- 
ment, and "his carcass feeds the vultures." The 
other camel pursues a wiser course, and '' no sprig 
of toothsome chervil does he leave unchewed." He 
supplies himself with strength ; and, therefore, he 
reaches the distant market-place with ''no damage 
to a single pack." Happy the youth who is equally 
provident ; happy he who understands that he too 
is a burden-bearer, freighted with grander treasure 
than was ever borne to gay bazaar, and that he 
should prepare for the desert journey by applying 
"his heart unto wisdom." 

Do thy day's work, dare 
Refuse no help thereto, since help refused 
Is hindrance sought and found. 

It is that he may extend some measure of help 
that the author of this book addresses the youth of 
to-day. He has been honored with the friendship 



Vlll PREFATORY 

of multitudes of young men and women both in 
America and Great Britain ; and it is no more than 
they are entitled to that he should seek to repay 
their confidence and affection by placing at their 
disposal the results of his reading, reflection, obser- 
vation, and experience. Believing as he does, that 
accountability increases in proportion to the degree 
of privilege enjoyed, and that in a sense, and within 
limits, every man makes himself and his destiny, 
and shares in the awful responsibility of shaping the 
world for the coming generation, he has tried ear- 
nestly and conscientiously to point out to the youth 
of to-day how he can become the upright, success- 
ful, and noble man of to-morrow. 

The substance of these ''Messages" has been 
given in familiar talks to hundreds of young people 
on both sides of the Atlantic ; and one of the chap- 
ters — the one on " Books " — has already been pub- 
lished separately by Mr. James H. Earle, of Boston, 
v/ith whom the author has made business arrange- 
ments for its appearance in the present volume. 

The readers of these pages will hardly fail to note 
much of a pathetic and disappointing character in 
some of the lives presented for their imitation ; and 
the question may arise, why attempt to copy what 
has not always brought fame and happiness ? Last 
summer in searching the register of St Saviour's 
Church, London, a gentleman came across this 
entry : " Buried, Philip Massinger — Stranger." 
And yet he was a renowned play writer, and has a 
name in literature to-day. But when he died, no 
one seems to have cared for him ; and no one, 
when his remains were committed to the dust, 



PREFATORY IX 

appears to have known their identity. Such in- 
stances of neglect I admit are painful ; and, unfor- 
tunately, I fear, they are as numerous as they are 
discouraging ; but let us never forget that Philip 
Massinger, while for the time he might be forgot- 
ten, could not be deprived of the pleasure he had 
derived from a literary career, and could not by any 
species of anticipated contumely be robbed of the 
inner consciousness of greatness. As the honored 
and lamented Governor Russell, of Massachusetts, 
said in an address to students, '' Our object is not a 
living, but a life" ; not to learn how to provide for 
existence but how to glorify and ennoble existence. 
If the youth of to-day keeps this before him, then 
he will not struggle for rewards and recognition, 
but for personal and genuine worth. With his am- 
bition thus refined and his vision thus clarified, he 
will gratefully accept the lessons that come to him 
from the histories of famous men, and will struggle 
to emulate their example notwithstanding their 
losses ; realizing profoundly that no losses can be 
other than as the small dust in the balance compared 
with the dignified and serene joy which proceeds 
from a cultivated mind, a simple faith, and an un- 
conquerable integrity. 

Tremont Tbmflb. 



CONTENTS 

Messages of To-day to the Men of To-morrow On : 

I 
Knowing Their Own Fathers i 

II 
Cherishing Ignoble Ambitions, 36 

III 
Migrating to the City, 69 

IV 
Overcoming Timidity in Battle, 103 

V 

Overvaluing Athletic Sports, 134 

VI 

Seeking Something for Nothing, 169 

VII 
Living Beyond Their Means 217 

VIII 

Achieving Worldly Success, 253 

xi 



XU CONTENTS 

IX 

Keeping Bad Company, 293 

X 

Dealing Honestly with Time, 330 

XI 
Cultivating a Love of Books, 368 

XII 
Receiving the Religion of Revelation, . . .428 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

TO THE 

MEN OF TO-MORROW 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 

We who did our lineage high 
Draw from beyond the starry sky^ 
Are yet upon the other side^ 

To earth and to its dust allied. 

GEORGE ELIOT, in ''Romola," graphically 
portrays the precocious piety of Florentine 
youth in the stirring days of Savonarola. ''Under 
the training of Fra Domlnico . .. . lads and strip- 
lings . . . were to have none but pure words on 
their lips, were to have a zeal for unseen good that 
should put to shame the lukewarmness of their elders, 
and were to know no pleasures save of an angelic sort 
— singing divine praises and walking in white robes." 
And for a time the young people of the city bravely 
sought to conform to this celestial ideal. They went 
about with little red crosses and olive-wreaths, en- 
tered the Duomo at dawn to receive the Eucharist, 



2 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

searched for worldly vanities that they might be 
destroyed, lectured their seniors, and behaved alto- 
gether like a supersaintly army of juvenile inquisi- 
tors. This all seemed well enough and inspiring 
enough for a season ; but after a while, Savonarola 
began to question the moral and spiritual advantage 
of these ostentatious proceedings. He was con- 
strained, at last, from his pulpit to say : ** There is 
a little too much shouting of 'Viva Gesu.* This 
constant utterance of sacred words brings them 
into contempt. Let me have no more of that 
shouting till the next Festa." The great reformer 
realized that v/hile processionings and convocations 
had a place as affording expression to the religious 
emotions, they v/ere not every^thing, and might, 
indeed, become a peril, being considered as more 
than an equivalent for the life of practical consecra- 
tion to God and humanity. And who knows but 
the earnest admonitions of the preacher arrested 
the youth of Florence from foolish extremes and 
went far toward developing them^ into the generation 
of men who fought bravely and endured nobly 
throughout the final struggle of their republic ? 

The young people of America — and to some 
extent of England — have of late been roused to an 
extraordinary degree of religious fervor. They 
have suddenly become a combined and organized 
force in the earth. While they do not appear on 
the streets in white robes, wearing wreaths and 
bearing crosses, their mammoth conventions quite 
put to shame the little gatherings of juvenile Floren- 
tines. These vast assemblies are doubtless exhila- 
rating and stimulating to faith ; but there is just a 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 3 

possibility that too much importance may come to 
be attached to them, that they may cultivate sensa- 
tionalism in worship, may render ordinary church 
services, in comparison, tame and uninteresting, 
and may increase the difficulty of maintaining the 
Christian calling in unobtrusive and unpretentious 
retirement. 

While it may not be wise to deciy the convention 
idea, the time has certainly arrived to bring up to 
the high level of its enthusiasm the daily activities 
of its ardent supporters. The bigness and intensity 
of the convention call for a corresponding largeness 
and breadth of thought, and for a suitable intensity 
in the discharge of duty on the part of all who have 
enjoyed its privileges. Balance is, of all things, 
the need of the hour. The emotional must not be 
allowed to run away with the intellectual and prac- 
tical. Effusive sentimentality must not be per- 
mitted to deluge the sober endeavors of the young 
to attain the loftiest heights of enduring usefulness. 
The dress parade of a magnificent army is, of course, 
inspiriting, but its fighting qualities are of pro- 
founder concern. Nor does it acquire its discipline 
and its drill on these great show-days. It is 
trained, instructed, and exercised in sections, in 
regiments, in companies, in squads ; for only as the 
individual soldier is developed does the combina- 
tion of soldiers become formidable. So, after all, 
the vast encampments of young Christians, become 
so common during the past few years, mean very 
little to society unless their noble-hearted and en- 
thusiastic rank and file have been taught, armed, 
tried, in small groups, and, indeed, singly as well. 



4 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

To aid them personally in so deserving an under- 
taking, teachers of every order should unite ; and 
perhaps one of the first duties to enjoin on them is 
the duty of ascertaining their true descent. 

When a fellow-being emerges from obscurity and 
wins a great battle, or writes a great book, or makes 
a stupendous fortune, one of the first things asked 
is. Whence came he ? Biographical sketches usu- 
ally begin with the ancestry of the hero and the 
impression is often made that the prophecy of his 
achievements had long before been written in the 
characteristics of his forefathers. Indeed, there is 
a hazy notion prevalent that there must be some 
genetic connection between a noble and notable 
career and its parental antecedents, or that, to use 
proverbial speech, ** blood will tell"; and that, if 
no such connection can be made out, brilliancy in 
thought and conduct is inexplicable and is extraor- 
dinarily creditable. Hence it was that David's 
successful attack on the giant aroused the interest 
of his sovereign to inquire, " Whose son art thou ? " 
And when the Maid of Orleans appeared, to whom 
De Quincey likens the hero of Bethlehem — for 
they both came " out of the quiet, out of the safety, 
out of the religious inspiration rooted in deep pas- 
toral solitudes to a station in the van of armies and 
to the more perilous station at the right hand of 
kings" — bishops, barons, princes, and priests curi- 
ously demanded, "Whose daughter art thou?" 

But there is another side to the picture. If 
the boy or the girl goes wrong, and if either un- 
expectedly commits a startling crime or yields to 
some hideous vice, at once the query is raised. To 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 5 

what family does the culprit belong? The whole 
question of heredity comes to the front. Who is, 
in reality, the guilty party — the grandparent, the 
parent, or the child? And if the offspring gone 
into infamy has proceeded from the loins of saintly 
generations, then the censure on the transgressor is 
sharper and more pitiless. But does it not then 
follow, if we may be betrayed into evil by some in- 
herited weakness, or if the possibility of renown 
has been transmitted in some gift from our sires, 
that we should know the moral and physical sources 
of our being? 

Many, without reason, are ashamed of their fore- 
fathers. They were poor and not a few hesitate 
in the presence of social magnates to avow an 
obscure parentage ; for they try to forget the pov- 
erty from which they sprang. In many other cases, 
however, where there is not the semblance of an 
occasion for this silly shame, there is the most in- 
excusable ignorance on the subject of personal 
descent. There is a disposition in America to mock 
at those persons who are interested in their genea- 
logical tree, and to insist that it is all-sufficient if we 
have reason to say, ** Our deeds are our ancestors." 
Our people, as a rule, sympathize with the English 
moralist who remarked that a man who chiefly 
prides himself on his ancestry is like a potato plant, 
whose best qualities are underground, and with 
the sentiment expressed by a Mohammedan poet : 

My soul is my father, my title my worth ; 

A Persian or Arab, there' s little between : 
Give me him for a comrade, whatever his birth. 

Who shows what he is — not what others have been . 



6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

I am aware that the ordinary investigations into 
Hneage are mostly for trivial purposes, and offer an 
inviting field for ridicule ; and further, I admit 
that familiarity with the mere names and even. 
lordly titles of our race can prove of very little prac- 
tical utility ; but when the family tree is honestly 
searched, even to its roots and to the qualit}^ of its 
native soil, that the seeker may ascertain what 
forces, what spiritual, moral, and physical elements, 
and what habits, beliefs, and pursuits had to do 
with the origin and shaping of his mind and body, 
the task is one of the most solemn import and of 
the most unqualified serviceableness. And I am 
sure if the youth of to-day, who are to be the men 
of to-morrow, will in this profounder sense try to 
discover the character of the yesterday which called 
them into being, they will be better qualified to 
guard their lives from manifold evils and to render 
them a blessing to societ}^ Wise forever the coun- 
sel of Abdallah : " Remem.ber, on the day of thy 
birth thou alone wept, while all around thee re- 
joiced. Now live so that at thy last moment all 
around thee may be in tears, while thou alone hast 
no tears to shed ; then thou wilt not fear death." 
And the first step toward this happy consummation 
will undoubtedly be taken if the significance of the 
birth itself shall be understood. 

Whence came humanit}^? Is it a spiritual shoot 
from the divine and ingrafted on a pre-existing 
animal stock, or is it merely a natural outgrowth 
of animalism itself, so to speak, the flowering of 
its hidden and mysterious forces ? Was Byron 
justified in terming man ''the pendulum 'twixt 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS / 

Deity and dust" ? and is the poet Young to be ac- 
quitted of exaggeration in describing him as the 
*' dim miniature of Greatness absolute " ? Virchow, 
the eminent scientist, is not prepared to ascribe the 
origin of the race to the bHnd action of Nature's 
laws, proceeding through a struggle for existence 
from the simple to the complex. During one of 
the more recent congresses of Vienna, he pointed 
out the unreliability and conjectural character of 
the foundations of the evolution hypothesis. He 
there declared that " We have in vain sought for 
the intermediate stages which are supposed to 
connect man with the apes ; the proto-man, the 
pro-anthropos, is not yet discovered. . . At this 
moment we are able to say that among the peoples 
of antiquity no single one was nearer to the apes 
than we are." 

Says Sir J. W. Dawson : 

We can trace man only a little way back in geological 
history, not farther than the Pleistocene period, and the ear- 
liest men are still men in all essential points, and separated 
from other animals, recent and fossil, by a gap as wide as 
that which exists now. Further, if, from the Pleistocene to 
the modern period, man has continued essentially the same, 
this, on the principle of gradual development, would remove 
his first appearance not only far beyond the existence of 
any remains of man or his work, but beyond the time when 
any animals nearly approaching to him are known to have 
existed. 

It is also well known that even some leading 
Darwinists falter when the genesis of genius, con- 
science, and intellect is brought into the debate, 
and leave the question of their derivation unex- 
plained. But while it becomes an amateur to speak 



8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

hesitatingly on such a theme, may I not venture to 
sup-o-est that science and the Bible ^ive accounts of 
the t^vo sides of the one subject, of the two prin- 
ciples necessary to the one birth ; and that the race, 
connected physically with the brute creation, is 
spiritually an emanation from the Deit}'? The veg- 
etable world in all of its various forms and t\-pes 
springs directly from the earth ; but that peculiar 
something which is added to the flowers, and which 
we call *' beaut}-," proceeds from above, is the gift 
and endowment of light x\nd there is nothing in- 
conceivable in the idea that humanit}^ has both 
father and mother ; motherhood in the animal king- 
dom, and fatherhood in the kingdom of heaven. 
Zoolog}', as well as theolog;;/, is indispensable at 
this stage of knowledge to an adequate anthropol- 
ogy. This we ought to recognize and at the same 
time acknovdedge that the problem of existence is 
much larger than our widest answers. Xot unlike 
is it to the great trees near Carlsbad, which cannot 
be encircled in any one pair of arms, but which can 
only be compassed by several men touching their 
outstretched hands together. So, likewise, in my 
view, the myster}- of our origin is so vast that all 
the thinking from creation to the present has done 
no more than skirt and bound its immensit}^. 

It is of the hig-hest moment that the realitv^ of 
our divine descent, however difficult of comprehen- 
sion it may be, should never be obscured. The 
birth-mark of Paradise ought never to be hidden ; 
for where it is concealed from the mind and con- 
science the entire theory' of life is in danger of 
being meagre and debasing. FataHsm in phi- 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 9 

losophy, utilitarianism in ethics, and agnosticism, if 
not atheism, are the natural outcome of Darwinism 
pure and simple ; and these things bode no good 
to society and often paralyze the energies of in- 
dividuals and blight the soul with a plague worse 
than leprosy. 

But, men of to-morrow, while you should never 
forget your relation to the Highest, you should 
never cease to be conscious of your kinship with 
the lowest. If you are of the heavens, heavenly, 
you are also of the earth, earthy. You are not all 
angel, not all godlike ; but embedded in your flesh 
are manifold coarse instincts, appetites, and passions 
inherited from the brute world. Remember that 
back of your genius, back of your intellect, and 
back of all your refined feelings and tender affec- 
tions, is the animal — the animal perhaps curbed, 
leashed, and caged, but not dead. It has been 
said repeatedly of Landseer, the famous artist, that 
he must himself have been a dog once ; for he not 
only painted his canine friends perfectly, but in 
some expressions of his face and points of his char- 
acter resembled them most strikingly. A likeness 
has also been detected by astute physiognomists on 
the part of Charles Darwin to a certain species of 
apes ; and it requires but superficial searching to 
discover in the features of our fellow-beings traces 
of the lion, or the tiger, or the wolf, or the fox, 
jackal, or hound, the eagle, the owl, or the buzzard. 
An English writer argues that some persons show 
by their love of moral carrion that the nature of the 
vulture has not passed away from their constitutions ; 
and surely the disposition of others to snarl, bite, 



lO MESSAGES OF TODAY 

rend, claw, and fight may be regarded as inherited 
characteristics transmitted from an ancient animal 
ancestn,*. 

Ribot vrho regards education as the sum of 
habits, notes with considerable effect the change 
apparently wrought in humanit}- by the horrors of 
battle and bloodshed : 

We are sometimes amazed at seeing nations highly civil- 
ized, gende, humane, charitable in time of peace, giving 
themselves up to ever\- excess as soon as war has broken 
out The reason of this is that war, being a return to the 
savage state, awakens the primitive nature of man as it sub- 
sisted prior to culture, and brings it back with all its heroic 
daring, its worship of force, and its boundless lusts . 

But it i^ not only when *' death doth Hne his dead 
chops with steel," and "mailed Mars doth on his 
altar sit up to his ears in blood," that coarse bar- 
barian and brute instincts re\-ive and assert them- 
selves ; there are other conditions that quicken 
their development Stanation, friendlessness, 
homelessness, and exposure are often fatal to gen- 
tleness and honest}' and tend to awaken ferocit}^ and 
thie\'ish cunning ; the allurements of a great city, 
such especially as appeal to the senses, are perilous 
to self-respect, serenit}', and purity, and make for 
the reanimation of swinelike sensuaHty^ 

And more than this, there are inherent and in- 
explicable forces working in many distinguished 
personages which lead to sudden and outrageous 
outbreaks of beastliness, against which he who 
would presen'e himself blameless must ever be on 
his guard. In the life of Chateaubriand, a writer 
both poetic and chaste, these forces would assert 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS II 

themselves in unrecordable indecencies. And the 
sentimental Lamartine and the enchanting Turner 
were not strangers to their fury, and at times dis- 
played tastes of the most unrefined and unnamable 
character. Paul Verlaine, who has recently ended 
his strange career and who figures in Nordau's 
work as an illustration of *' degeneration," and who 
has been described as the reincarnation, after four 
hundred years, of the spirit of Francois Villon, is 
another example, and a woeful one, of the ruthless 
victory of inbred and latent viciousness over a re- 
fined and cultured soul. He was chief of the De- 
cadents and had two styles of living and two styles 
of composition. He is thus portrayed by a maga- 
zine writer, and the sad picture is full of solemn 
warning : 

During his terrible days of miserable dissipation he wrote 
verses, few of which have ever been found fit for print. 
Poetry of the rarest, their subjects were unspeakably gross. 
These periods of almost maniacal depravity would end up 
in some hospital, where the weak, repentant Verlaine wrote 
the lofty, beautiful religious poems upon which his fame de- 
pends. He looked like a Tartar, with high cheek bones and 
slanting eyes. His large head was sunken between his shoul- 
ders. He was a pitiful, broken, soiled wreck of a man, 
who lived in the gutter, the prison, and the hospital. He 
left thirteen volumes of poetry, which add to the fame of 
France ; and he died an unspeakable outcast. 

It would seem, from such instances, that the soul 
is very much like Van Amburg encaged with wild 
beasts, whose business it is to tame them with iron 
rod and imperious will ; but who, by relaxing his 
dominant attitude, may be mastered by the crea- 
tures he should have subdued. James Freeman 



12 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Clarke gdves the following: as the confession of those 
who " are most pure in heart, and most blameless 
in character '' : 

Outwardly we may seem innocent, but we feel an inward 
want that weighs on our heart like ice. Some of the no- 
blest of men tell us that they are sometimes startled by the 
horrid suggestions which spring up in them. Moralists 
have acknowledged that, without the slightest reason or 
temptation, they have felt of a sudden an impulse to commit 
the most horrid crimes. 

So Sir Thomas BroTSTi testifies : ''The heart of man 
is the place the de\ils dwell in. I feel sometimes a 
hell within myself" \Mien Marsden, a devout mis- 
sionary', was slandered, he said to a friend : ** Sir, 
these men do not know the worst ; if I were to walk 
through the streets with my heart laid bare, the 
boys v/ould pelt me." "I have never heard of 
any crime which I might not have committed," 
said Goethe. And Plutarch, in the olden time, ex- 
claimed : "A man cannot write a bill of divorce to 
his vice. . . It still cohabits with him and dwells in 
his ver}' bowels, and cleaves to him both by night 
and day." 

There is another feature of heredit}- that the men 
of to-morrow ought not to overlook or regard with 
indifference. E\'il seems to be transmitted with 
greater facility' than good. The late C. H. Spur- 
geon is reported to have said to his son, "Tom, I 
can transfer my gout to my descendants, but not 
the gift of grace." Reprobac)^ is apparently more 
prolific than regeneracy. Vice is more tenacious 
of life than \irtue. Criminals are more likely to 
reproduce criminals than saints are to reproduce 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 1 3 

saints. In fact, this is one of the terrors of existence. 
We do not receive from the past equal proportions 
of its morality and immorality, its right and its 
wrong, its sanity and insanity. There is ever a 
manifest tendency toward predominance on the side 
of what is most to be dreaded. The poison that 
has entered the blood of the race operates with 
more persistence on succeeding generations than 
the medicine ; and the peril is, unless we are con- 
stantly watching, that our remedies may be neutral- 
ized by the sudden activity of the toxaemian curse. 
It is usual to attribute this danger to what our 
theologians call "total depravity." Perhaps Cole- 
ridge accounts for it more scientifically when he 
says, **As there is much beast and some devil in 
man, so there is some angel and some God in him" ; 
only it appears as though the devil has very fre- 
quently the upper hand. This is made painfully 
clear in many of the old Testament biographies. 
The Fall is followed by a succession of falls : Cain 
makes with bewildering rapidity the descent to the 
level of a murderer ; Noah comes down from his 
high fellowship with God to drunkenness ; Abraham 
backslides in the direction of falsehood ; and Mir- 
iam, Moses, Samson, Jephtha, David, and the rest, 
fail in their steadfastness. The record is a morti- 
fying one ; but it is more than matched in the an- 
nals of secular affairs. The debaucheries of Alex- 
anders, the cruelties of Tamerlanes, the ruthless 
bloodthirstiness of Louis XIV., and the St. Bartholo- 
mews of popes, are all frightful to contemplate. 
Prescott says : ''Strange that in every country the 
most fiendish passions have been those kindled in 



14 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

the name of religion." And yet the wonder ceases 
when it is remembered that "the heart is deceitful 
above all things and desperately wicked." This 
innate wickedness also explains why, even in a 
Christian communit\^, there is a mighty tendency 
to revert to the type of unregeneracy and why 
holy instincts are not so likely to perpetuate them- 
selves as those that are unholy. The father of 
Nero declared that his son, born of himself and 
Agrippina, would prove a curse to the State. The 
vicious elements made themselves more prominent 
and were more endurino; in the Hne of the Stuarts 
than the good. Mary's weaknesses, follies, and 
crimes show themselves in her descendants more 
conspicuously than her graces and heroic qualities. 
We constantly hear of children of presidents, states- 
men, magistrates, preachers, who evince none of 
the sterling qualities which made their fathers 
eminent But on the contrar)^, a larger proportion 
of the dangerous classes continue their careers in 
their boys and girls. Jean Chretien brings into the 
world three sons, who were lawless ; and the course 
of ten grandsons and granddaughters and great- 
grandsons and great-granddaughters is marked by 
robberies, violence, murders, and the gallows. In 
the " Thirtieth Annual Report of the Prison Asso- 
ciation of New York," we have an account of the 
Juke family located in that Commonwealth. It is 
descended from five sisters, bom 1 720-1 740, and 
numbers among its members one hundred and forty 
criminals, sixty habitual thieves, and fift}- fallen 
women. Seven murders have been committed by 
this family, and an appalling number of years has 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 1 5 

been spent by it inside the prison.^ These are 
deplorable cases, and they should affect us very 
seriously. They should solemnize us. Here is a 
force we are compelled to fight against in all our 
efforts to improve society — a force that can hardly 
be measured, and one that we have not as yet taken 
due account of in our reformatory schemes. Its 
very mysteriousness increases its awfulness. At a 
moment we least expect any intrusion on our plans 
of righteous conduct we may be smitten down by 
an ambushed foe whose secret place is the unex- 
plored, and possibly the unexplorable, fastnesses 
of our own natures. 

The logic of this subordination to transmitted 
evil would seem to be personal irresponsibility ; 
and yet, while in theory this deduction is frequently 
set forth with marked pomposity of words, in fact 
the consciousness of moral freedom and of the pre- 
eminent obligation to live uprightly is rarely, if 
ever, superseded. The Scriptures uniformly pro- 
ceed on the supposition that, however strong our 
inbred lusts and our inherited inclinations, every 
man is accountable for what he does. No allowance 
is made for the hunger of Esau or for the drunken- 
ness of Noah. Nothing is written in extenuation 
of liars and adulterers. It is assumed that they 
have sufficient capacity for the discharge of duty. 
Then, as a matter of experience, men only bring 
themselves to blame their forbears as a relief to 
remorse. They feel guilty if they sin, even though 
their fathers may have committed the same sin, 

* "Deterioration," p. 75. 



1 6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

and their moral sense does not revolt against their 
exclusion from the kingdom of heaven, which is 
announced in the Bible, on account of their own 
conduct. This testimony is worth much to us ; it 
opens a door of hope while it closes that of excuse. 
If we are responsible, then there is no necessity of 
our continuing in bondage. 

To this it may be said that there are cases where 
men cannot overcome this force. This may be so, 
though I am not convinced. But as soon as they 
know they cannot check the evil in them, they 
admit that there is evil, and so are bound to be on 
guard against it ; and if any way of escape is open 
they are fearfully to blame if they do not avail 
themselves of its succor. This statement covers 
the entire ground of moral obligation. Remember, 
as soon as you recognize a defect, whether inherited 
or not, your guilt begins if you do not seek its cure. 
Nor is the cure hard to find. It is in God. He 
saves ; but you are to hear the word, to attend, to 
listen, to seek, and pray. Whenever this temper is 
found, the blessing will never be denied. I cannot 
move a ship, but I can set the sails to the wind ; I 
cannot carry water to irrigate a plain, but I can dig 
a canal along which the water will flow to the field ; 
I cannot separate the gold from the quartz, but I 
can put it in the crusher and the furnace ; I can- 
not light a world, but I can prevail on the gas and 
electricity of the globe to do so. So I cannot 
change my heart, but I can ask God to change it, 
and can place it under the prescribed conditions 
of the blessing. Nor should it be overlooked, in 
considering responsibility, that we inherit graces 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 1/ 

and good qualities and are qualified for usefulness 
by much that has descended to us and to others. 
These I have admitted are not always so active 
and potent as their opposites ; but nevertheless, 
they are, and ought not to be undervalued. If 
some transmitted things are disadvantageous, others 
are advantageous. We likewise share in some 
degree the benefits that proceed from the genius 
and talents imparted to those about us. These 
compensations are to be considered, and when it 
is realized that this arrangement creates interde- 
pendence and that the total result of the same* is 
beneficial to the race, we have really no ground 
for complaint. Injustice is done to none and no 
one has reason to say that obligation ends where 
heredity begins. 

This retrospect I fear has gone too far toward 
the dim dawning of human history and has con- 
cerned itself too exclusively with abstractions and 
generalizations for it to prove of immediate profit ; 
and yet it is immensely important that our young 
people should realize that they are ^'the heirs of 
all the ages," and that in the battle of life they are 
compelled to measure strength not only with the 
generation that now is, but with all the generations 
that have been. 

Now, however, we may venture nearer home. 
Young men, you have seen your remote ancestors ; 
their shadows have passed before you on these 
pages and you have had an opportunity of medi- 
tating on the significance of your relationship to 
them. In the same spirit you should determine to 
know as much as possible of your immediate family. 



1 8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Who was your mother ? Would it not have been 
well if Lord Byron had known his mother, Lady 
Byron ? Did he ever understand her weak, head- 
strong, impetuous, and variable temper? Probably 
he never took pains to obtain an adequate intro- 
duction to her. But are you, my reader, really 
acquainted with your own parents ? or are they 
strangers to you except in name ? I am afraid 
many children, while walking and talking with their 
fathers, have no knowledge of them whatever. The 
pedagogue affirms that parents should familiarize 
themselves with the bias, aptitudes, and disposition 
of their offspring. How otherwise can they suc- 
cessfully educate them ? But pedagogy ought to 
assist the child to find out his own father and 
mother ; for only in this way can he educate him- 
self out of vicious tendencies or moral eccentricities 
which left to themselves may undo him. There 
is room for a fresh reading of the saying, '' It is a 
wise son that knows his own father" ; and he who 
truly knows is in a fair way of being wiser. I am 
sure it would be well were the head of the house- 
hold to give his boys trustworthy information 
regarding his own deficiencies. These are as im- 
portant to be known as his virtues. As I have 
attempted to make very plain, the laws of transmis- 
sion are but inadequately understood, and neither 
sires nor sons can afford to treat them with in- 
difference. ''Behold," writes Ezekiel, "everyone 
that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against 
thee, saying, As is the mother so is her daughter. 
. . . Your mother was a Hittite, and your father 
an Amorite." And since the days of the prophet 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 1 9 

science has confirmed what he discerned and de- 
clared — that the seed of evil-doers does not cease 
with one generation, but perpetuates itself indefi- 
nitely through successive generations. The am- 
bitions and aptitudes, talents and taints, virtues 
and vices, and even the form and feature, and 
often the very carriage, manners, and voice are 
continued in the line of descent. George Eliot 
thus writes : 

I read a record deeper than the skin. 

What ! Shall the trick of nostril and of lips 

Descend through generations, and the soul 

That moves within our frame like God in worlds — 

Convulsing, urging, melting, withering — 

Imprint no record, leave no documents 

Of her great history ? Shall men bequeath 

The fancies of their palates to their sons, 

And shall the shudder of restraining awe, 

The slow- wept tears of contrite memory. 

Faith's prayerful labor, and the food divine 

Of fasts ecstatic — shall these pass away. 

Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly ? 

Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain, 

And God-enshrining symbols leave no trace 

Of tremors reverent ? That maiden' s blood 

Is as unchristian as the leopard's. 

An illustration of the principle is presented in 
the Darwin family. Erasmus was a pronounced 
scientist, who seems to have anticipated some of 
the conclusions advocated by his more celebrated 
son Charles, the author of the famous " Origin of 
Species" ; for he wore a seal with the singular 
legend engraved thereon, Omnia ex concJiis — that 
is, ''all from oysters"; and now his grandson, 



20 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Francis, is following in the footsteps of his illus- 
trious progenitors. It is remarkable, likewise, how 
many children of clergymen are predisposed from 
their birth to their father's vocation, evidence of 
which we have in such theological luminaries as 
Jonathan Edv/ards, Archbishop Whately, Robert 
Hall, Lightfoot, Lowth, the Wesleys, the Beechers, 
and the Spurgeons. Perhaps, likewise, it should 
be noted that, even when their descendants do 
not embrace the minister's calling, the father's usu- 
ally thoughtful habits, exactness of life and conduct, 
combined with a natural and cultivated love of books 
and of language, are very frequently transmitted and 
reappear with some modifications in their posterity. 
Thus the scientists, Berzelius, Linnaeus, Encke, and 
Agassiz were the sons of pastors ; and philosophers 
and historians include among them the names of 
Hobbes, Hallam, Macaulay, Sismondi, Dugald 
Stewart, Cudworth, Bentham, Abercrombie, Emer- 
son, and others, who were of clerical stock. The 
poets Young, Cowper, Thompson, Coleridge, Mont- 
gomery, Heber, Tennyson, Lowell ; and the men 
of letters Swift, Lockhart, Sterne, Hazlitt, Bancroft, 
Thackeray, Kingsley, Matthew Arnold ; and emi- 
nent politicians, such as Clay and the Everetts, 
were all, so to speak, the children of the prophets. 
There is a confused notion abroad that the offspring 
of clergymen rarely turn out well, and that, there- 
fore, the law of heredity does not show itself in 
these cases ; or that the parents must have been 
very unfit for the discharge of their duty. The 
names I have cited may serve to dispel this illusion 
and convince us that De Candolle is not far from 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 21 

the truth when he affirms that the sons of ministers 
"have actually surpassed during two hundred 
years, in their contributions to the roll of eminent 
scientists, the similar contributions of any other 
class of families." 

Of course, and unhappily, there have been many 
deplorable exceptions to this honorable record. The 
fact is, the rule of heredity does not always work ; 
or, at least, does not always work intelligibly and 
without perverse and tantalizing eccentricity. 
Strong men have sprung from feeble progenitors, 
sober men from drunkards, saints from sinners, 
angels from devils. Charles Dickens, in "The Old 
Curiosity Shop," gives a very fair idea of the way 
in which earthly lives repeat themselves : 

If you have seen the picture gallery of any one old 
family, you will remember how the same face and figure — 
often the fairest and slightest of them all — come upon you 
in different generations ; and how you trace the same sweet 
girl through a long line of portraits, never growing old or 
changing, the good angel of the race, abiding by them in 
all reverses, redeeming all their sins. 

That is, not in unbroken continuity, but intermit- 
tently, ancestral traits reappear, like rivers which 
have been lost in the ground and then break out 
in distant localities quite unexpectedly. But this 
very uncertainty should especially appeal to the 
instinct of self-preservation in the young, lest they 
should be overcome by the resuscitation of some 
deadly appetite long since supposed to have per- 
ished in the grave of a dishonored rest. Eternal 
vigilance is the condition of safety. 



22 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

"Whose son art thou, young man?" Happy 
the youth who can answer in the poet's terms of 
conscious dignity : 

My boast is not that I deduce my birth 
From loins enthroned, the rulers of the earth ; 
But higher far my proud pretensions rise — 
The son of parents passed into the skies. 

And yet, the youth thus born must be careful not to 
presume. Many have proven themselves to be ut- 
terly unworthy of the heritage of Christian memories 
and a Christian home. They have failed to appre- 
ciate an upright father and a virtuous mother and 
have plunged desperately into folly. Surely, when 
ancestors have belonged to the honorable of the 
earth something is due their reputation ; and when 
a lad is oblivious to its value and drags the family 
name in the mire, he must be heartless, base, 
and despicable. There is no plea to mitigate the 
shoreless meanness of the boy who goes forth from 
the hearthstone where saintly souls have prayed for 
him, to idleness, carousing, and licentiousness ; yet 
this has been done repeatedly, possibly because the 
youth thought, if he thought at all, that his parents' 
piety would preserve him from extremes in sin, or 
because he failed to realize that some inherited taint 
might break out in his blood, fouling his conscience 
and poisoning his judgment. 

But, by way of compensation to this terrible con- 
tingency, we have the encouraging indication that 
heredity is not necessarily the same as fatality. 
Many persons have been born of a most unprom- 
ising stock, of a tree that has always yielded bitter 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 2$ 

fruit, and have been so sound and pure and sweet, 
or have so restrained and conquered the inbred 
tendency to evil in them, that they have won the 
esteem and veneration of mankind. Children have 
been so disgusted at the vicious ways of their 
parents that they have turned from such courses 
with horror and loathing. This kind of moral re- 
vulsion leading to virtue is not common ; but it is 
less rare than many suppose. One notable instance 
will at least illustrate its possibility, and may stimu- 
late some soul that has despaired of freedom from 
an ancient ancestral lust or appetite to make a 
bold fight against its supremacy. If there ever 
was a man who was warranted in giving up his life 
as a failure before he had fairly commenced it that 
man was Henry Wilson of Massachusetts. His 
father was dissipated and so dissolute that the son 
took another name that he might in some degree 
escape the disgrace of his relationship. He had no 
advantages from position or from schooling, but 
rather otherwise. The earlier years of his remark- 
able career were spent in a shoemaker's shop, and 
his education did not begin until he had reached 
an age when others finish theirs. He never had 
any money of his own until he was twenty-one years 
old ; and when he had by hard work accumulated 
a little sum, he was defrauded of it and had to 
begin anew. And yet, in spite of all difficulties and 
obstacles, he steadily grew in character and in in- 
fluence, was chosen to represent a constituency in 
the State Legislature, rose to the Senate of the 
United States, and closed his political life as the 
vice-president of our great republic. What Henry 



24 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Wilson achieved others can successfully accomplish 
if the heart is brave and the will determined. 

Alfred Wallace, the famous scientist, testifies in 
the same direction when writing on the subject of 
"Heredity" in the '"Forum" : **The men whose 
originality and mental power have created land- 
marks in the history of human progress, have been 
self-taught and have certainly derived nothing from 
the training of their ancestors in their several de- 
partments of knowledge. Brindley, one of the 
earliest of our modern engineers, was the son of a 
dissipated small freeholder ; Telford, our greatest 
road and bridge builder, was the son of a shepherd 
and apprenticed to a rough countr^^ mason ; George 
Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine, 
was a self-taught collier ; Bramah, the inventor of 
the hydraulic press, of improved locks, and almost 
the originator of machine tools, was the son of a 
farmer, and at seventeen years of age was appren- 
ticed to the village carpenter ; Smeaton, who de- 
signed and built the Eddystone lighthouse, was the 
son of a lawyer and a wholly self-taught engineer ; 
Harrison, the inventor of the modern chronometer, 
was a joiner and the son of a joiner ; the elder 
Brunnel was the son of a French peasant farmer 
and was educated for a priest, yet he became a 
great self-taught engineer, designed and executed 
the first Thames tunnel, and at the beginning 
of this century designed the block-making ma- 
chinery in Portsmouth dockyard, which was so 
complete both in plan and execution that it is still 
in use. 

** Coming now to higher departments of industry. 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 2$ 

science, and art, we find that Dollond, the inventor 
of the achromatic telescope, was a working silk- 
weaver and a wholly self-taught optician ; Faraday 
was the son of a blacksmith and apprenticed to a 
bookbinder at the age of thirteen ; Sir Christopher 
Wren, the son of a clergyman and educated at Ox- 
ford, was a self-taught architect, yet he designed and 
executed St. Paul's Cathedral, which will certainly 
rank among the finest modern buildings in the 
world ; Ray, the son of a blacksmith, became a 
good mathematician and one of the greatest of our 
early naturalists ; John Hunter, the great anatomist, 
was the son of a small Scotch landowner ; Sir 
William Herschel was the son of a German musi- 
cian ; Rembrant was the son of a miller ; the great 
linguists and oriental scholars, Alexander Murray 
and Dr. Leyden, were both sons of poor Scotch 
shepherds ; while Shelley, whose poetic genius has 
rarely been surpassed, was the son of an altogether 
unpoetic and unsympathetic country squire. 

'* These {qw examples, which might be easily in- 
creased so as to fill a volume, serve to show, what 
is indeed seldom denied, that genius or superexcel- 
lence in any department of human faculty tends to 
be sporadic ; that is, it appears suddenly without 
any proportionate development in the parents or 
immediate ancestors of the gifted individual." 

Matthew Arnold, the eminent man of letters, 
when in Boston was surprised to find a barefooted 
newsboy busily engaged on a " Life of Washington " 
in the reading room of the public library. After 
talking with the ragged lad and finding him of pro- 
nounced anti-British sentiments, the distinguished 



26 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

essayist said to an officer of the library that such a 
sight as that could not be seen in Europe : 

There is not a reading room there that I know of where 
a boy dressed as he is would enter. What a tribute to 
democratic institutions it is to say that, instead of sending 
that boy out to wander alone in the streets, they permit him to 
come in and excite his youthful imagination by reading such 
a book as the • ' Life of Washington. ' ' The reading of that 
one book may change the whole course of that boy' s life, 
and may be the means of making him a useful, honorable, 
worthy citizen of this great counti-y. It is a sight, I tell you, 
that impresses a European not accustomed to your demo- 
cratic ways. 

But to me, the figure of the neglected child bend- 
ing over the page of biography has a significance 
far beyond what occurred to the great Englishman. 
Whose son was he ? What of intemperance, animal- 
ism, cruelty, wastefulness, and general good-for- 
nothingness may have polluted the fount of his 
being ! And how the beginning of his life may 
have been rendered unpropitious by the physical 
and moral quagmire, sludge, recrement, and ordure 
by which it was surrounded. That boy with the 
'* Life of Washington " before him looks like a soul 
working its way upward out of the slime and mud 
of its origin. Courage, then, ye who blush for your 
parents ; courage, ye who are tempted to curse 
their memory for endowing you with a feeble body 
and for dooming you, before your birth, to social 
ostracism : courage, ye who can see no sign of hope 
or promise on the dark horizon ; courage, attempt 
a noble thing, a thing that has been achieved and 
that is not impossible, conquer your evil environ- 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 2/ 

ment, subdue the devil in your blood, repel your 
malignant genius, and make yourself the master 
of your destiny, and refuse with set teeth and 
stubborn heart to be its slave. Think of the lonely 
boy in the public library painfully spelling out the 
history of greatness, and let his example inspire to 
lofty endeavor, remembering : 

No man e' er gained a happy life by chance, 
Or yawned it into being with a wish. 

Of what stock are you the shoot, young man ? 
The question is here and now asked by a friend, 
by one who has no idle curiosity to satisfy, and who 
is more anxious that you should answer it to your- 
self than to him. But be assured, however you 
may now deign no reply, others, with less sympathy 
for your welfare, will in future years repeat the in- 
quiry, perhaps harshly, censoriously, and contemptu- 
ously repeat it. If you succeed in life, undoubtedly 
many tongues will chatter about your origin and pry- 
ing souls will seek to know your parentage, that you 
may be voted a nobody and a snob or whatever 
else prejudice or partiality may determine. Should 
you at such a time dwell unduly on the obscurity 
of your birth, it will be intimated that you desire 
to retain all the merit of your rise in fortune to 
yourself; and if you boast of your aristocratic fore- 
fathers, it will be charitably suggested that you have 
no real worth of your own to exhibit, and that you 
suppose that the height and purity of a stream at 
its source will excuse its being shallow and foul at 
the base of the mountain. Society is so good- 
natured, you see. It is impossible to escape its 



28 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

criticism; but ii is possible to deserve exemption 
from its cynical detraction. And this you will do 
if, in the hour of prosperity, you carry yourself 
with quiet independence and manly modesty. 

In this way Pareja was exceedingly fortunate in 
silencing envious tongues. His histoiy is full of 
interest and instruction. When a boy he was pur- 
chased by the famous painter, Velasquez, to serve 
as his color-grinder. By birth he was a m^ulatto, 
and the blood of a slave ancestry coursed in his 
veins, and to the evil estate of slavery was he 
doomed. But within the dusky skin there dwelt a 
soul that art could touch and move ; and he deter- 
mined to imitate his great master and possibly to 
rival him. Thirty years were spent in this high 
and laudable ambition. When others slept he 
studied and worked, and worked in secret ; for, had 
he made known his purpose he probably would 
have been laughed at or have been compelled by 
measures of severitv' to desist. But after unwearied 
and conscientious application, he determined to risk 
everything to display his proficiency and obtain, 
if possible, the right to pursue his art labors openly. 
He had observed that when the Spanish monarch, 
Philip IV., visited Velasquez, his eye always wan- 
dered around the studio in search of something 
new. Pareja, therefore, hung one of his own 
pictures with its face to the wall, and in a position 
sufficiently conspicuous to attract the royal atten- 
tion. x\s he had expected, the king saw it at once, 
and commanded that it should be brought for him 
to inspect. The examination resulted favorably. 
His majesty was more than pleased and Velasquez 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 29 

was charmed ; but neither of them knew the painter. 
At last Pareja fell on his knees and confessed the 
authorship of the picture and begged forgiveness 
for practising his master's art without his knowledge 
or permission. His prayer was heard. Not only 
was he pardoned, but his emancipation was decreed, 
as Philip would not consent that one so gifted should 
remain in bonds. Soon everywhere through Madrid 
society the question was asked, *' Whose son is he ? " 
It was readily answered that he was practically the 
son of nobody ; but the idle tongue of gossip could 
not deny that he had made himself as the son of 
Velasquez ; for in the season of his popularity, 
when the master's strength was abating, Pareja 
served him, tended him, and honored him as one 
born to his name, and when death removed the 
object of his veneration he transferred his loyal de- 
votion to the daughter and watched over her as a 
father and a brother. My young friends, do not 
forget the mulatto boy, Pareja, when you shall have 
conquered difficulties and have overcome the disad- 
vantages of birth and fortune ; for if you shall then 
be at all like him in the nobility of his character 
and conduct, the world, however censoriously dis- 
posed, will not be able to obscure your genuine 
worth and dignity. 

If in success the curious public pry into our 
parentage, how much more will it do so in misfor- 
tune, especially if the misfortune assumes vast pro- 
portions or is darkened by the blackness of crime ! 
Should you ever, my youthful reader, be connected 
with some perversion of trust funds, or with the 
wrecking of a bank, and should you ever be 



30 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

arraigned for trial in a court of justice, reporters of 
newspapers, correspondents, lawyers, and magis- 
trates will ask, ** Whose son is he?" and in your 
case the sin of the child will be visited on the 
parent. Leigh Hunt describes an infant he saw 
on one of his journeys to the country, that was 
incased in steel and was covered with sores ; and 
he straightway attributed this deplorable condition 
to parental irregularities and denounced the sire as 
a fool or a scoundrel. Almost instinctively we 
judge as Hunt did and try to carry the blame 
back to ancestry, and are inclined to pass sentence 
on the generation gone for the guilty thing that has 
been wrought by the generation that now is. In 
China, when a man has seriously transgressed the 
law, a minute inquiry is made into his physical and 
mental condition and into his previous conduct, and 
it is even pushed to the antecedents of the mem- 
bers of his family, whether they are alive or dead ; 
and, in the case of high treason, it is decreed that 
not only shall the culprit be cut into a thousand 
pieces, but his children and grandchildren shall 
suffer with him. Fortunately we do not carry 
judgment as far as our Celestial neighbors ; but we 
do, like them, bring the ghosts of the departed 
back to the habitations of the living and hold them 
to strict account, and oftentimes, without evidence, 
assume that they are responsible, and condemn 
them unheard ; for in the nature of things they 
cannot speak for themselves. Could they but do 
so, could they but articulate their own version of 
a son's misdeeds, the sentence against them might 
be reversed. Children do not always stop to 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 3 1 

consider the injustice they may commit against 
the memory of their parents by their infamies ; and 
in not a few cases they who have most to be proud 
of are least thoughtful of the good name they are 
sacrificing by their criminal folly. Descendants of 
some noble and notable English families have not 
been deterred by ancient rank and honors from 
squandering their patrimony on the race-course and 
on other forms of extravagant vice. Earls and 
barons whose ancestors won their spurs on the 
field of chivalrous combat, have handed over their 
broad acres and the art treasures of their castles to 
the auctioneer that debts contracted in the pursuit 
of polluting pleasure might in some degree be 
liquidated. Lordly aristocracies in Europe, and 
even plutocratic aristocracies in America, have of 
late evinced so little decency and so little respect 
for themselves that they are beginning to be held 
in contempt by the rest of mankind. 

In sharp contrast with this disregard of reputa- 
tion, mark the pathetic solicitude on the part of 
many low and vile characters to guard their family 
from the taint of their personal immoralities. 
"Whose daughter art thou?" asks the justice, or 
in words to the same purport, of the wrecked 
woman who stands trembling at his judgment seat. 
A slight flush overspreads her countenance, and 
then she answers with a fictitious name, one as re- 
mote as possible from the real, and in her heart 
rejoices that she has been able to protect the only 
thing she venerates from exposure and shame. 
And yet this poor creature sprang not from the 
loins of Norman conquerors, but had her origin 



32 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

among the poorest of society, and all too early 
bedraggled her garments in the infamy of city 
slums. Sent for to such a one in the dying hour, 
the clergyman inquired of her whence she came 
and her father's name. '* Hush," she said, ''call 
me Magdalen, for who I am none must know. I 
am not so base as to degrade others in my fall." 
Thus sensitive was the pitiable outcast to her dis- 
honor smirching the humble and obscure home 
where first she saw the light ; while the descendant 
of a hundred earls stains the escutcheon of his house 
with abominable vices ! A notable example of this 
contemptible shamelessness survives in the tragic 
biography of Aaron Burr. According to the sci- 
entific doctrine of heredity, he ought to have been 
in every essential respect a blameless individual, but 
he was not. His father was a minister and the presi- 
dent of Princeton College, and his mother was Esther 
Edwards, daughter of the elder Jonathan Edwards 
of blessed memory. All of his immediate progeni- 
tors were men and women of high character, exalted 
piety, and of stainless reputation. Of his maternal 
grandmother her husband wrote : 

There are certain seasons in which God, in some way or 
other, invisibly comes to her and fills her mind with ex- 
ceeding sweet delight, and she hardly cares for anything 
except to meditate on him. If you present all the world 
before her with the richest of its treasures, she cares not for 
it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a 
strange sweetness in her mind, a singular purity in her 
affections, is most just and conscientious in all her conduct. 

Such was the source ; but now mark the quality 
of the stream. Alas ! here nature's law seems to 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 33 

have been reversed; ''sweet water yielded salt"; 
the "fountain" sent forth from the same opening 
bitter water with the sweet, Aaron Burr revived 
in himself none of the graces by which his parents 
and grandparents were distinguished. He was 
cold, selfish, calculating, remorseless in sensuality 
and inordinate in ambition, destroying without pity 
the life of man and the honor of woman. Tried 
for treason, guilty of dueling, a fighter, a brawler, 
a mercenary politician, he has left behind him a 
reputation for badness unrelieved by any recorded 
act of generosity or moral heroism. I pass by the 
glaring exception which this miserable life presents 
to the general rule that ''like produces like," and 
note only the super-eminent infamy of the man in 
scandalizing and tarnishing the Christian name he 
bore. In comparison with the forlorn Magdalen, 
whose sensitive concern for her family — though, 
alas ! all too late — I have recorded, Aaron Burr 
was at once base and contemptible. 

But while it is of the gravest moment that our 
young people should know as much as possible of 
their origins, they should never forget that they 
themselves are as closely allied to the future as the 
past is allied to them. If to-day is the child of 
yesterday, to-morrow will be born of to-day. We 
are often ready to blame our ancestors for our moral 
and physical disabilities, and rarely realize that we 
may be living so recklessly as to more than trans- 
mit them to posterity. "Retrospect" is an im- 
perative duty; but it is inseparable from "pros- 
pect." Looking back is only complete as an 
ethical act when we look forward. All persons are 

c 



34 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

living for the time to come, whether they desire to 
do so or not They must send some contribution 
down to the approaching generations for good or 
evil, for weal or woe. There are individuals who 
are consciously seeking to store the world with 
imperishable achievements which shall to "the 
crack of doom " proclaim their greatness. Estates 
are accumulated, money stored in vaults, and 
stocks and bonds are hoarded for the sake of 
enriching those who are not yet born. These in- 
creasing treasures may prove a blessing ; but not 
improbably they may turn out to be a curse, and 
may, after all the anxiet>^ of their keepers, fail to 
reach the objects for which they were amassed. 
The uncertainty attending the disposition of such 
wealth should teach us the truer wisdom of seeking 
to confer on those who shall succeed us the inheri- 
tance of a sound body, a sane mind, and a pure 
soul. To acquire such a heritage ought to be the 
special business of the youth of to-day. Once 
surely theirs, no defects in their last will and testa- 
ment, no tricky lawyers, and no dissatisfied rela- 
tives, can alienate the same from their children. 
Danvin has taught us that in the struggle for exist- 
ence the weak and the ill-formed have gone to 
destruction. Assuming this to be the case, must 
not a tremendous responsibilitv^ rest on those whose 
excesses have unfitted them to be parents of off- 
spring suiiiciently vigorous to resist the forces that 
make for extinction ? Formerly, among some pagan 
peoples, babes that gave no promise of health were 
exposed to death. This practice has been abol- 
ished as inhuman ; but is not the practice equally 



KNOWING THEIR OWN FATHERS 35 

inhuman of men and women, knowing themselves 
to be cursed with incurable and transmittable dis- 
eases, or knowing themselves to be, through their 
own acts, moral or physical wrecks, assuming the 
sacred and solemn functions of parentage ? Young 
men, as you may become the fount of being to 
others, keep the springs clear, and preserve others 
untainted from the poison of tobacco and strong 
drink. Avoid bad habits of every kind, cultivate 
your mind, purify your heart, and be careful not to 
marry into families, however affluent or socially 
prominent, where the taint and pollution of ancient 
obscenities reveal themselves. No amount of phil- 
anthropic sentiment expressed for the sufferers of 
this age can atone for the actual sufferings your 
thoughtless indulgence may entail on your inno- 
cent descendants. ''Who is my neighbor?" was a 
question asked by a youth in the olden time. The 
answer given, as interpreted by scientific research 
and enlarged by the ever-broadening spirit of 
Christianity, embraces your children's children to 
the end of time, as well as the aliens in race and 
creed who are your contemporaries in the earth. 
While it may be a sign of faith that you " take no 
thought for the morrow," so far as you yourselves 
are concerned, it is an unfailing sign of love when 
you take thought to render that morrow a blessing 
and a source of blessings to all who shall come 
after you. 



II 

CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 

Thoti hungerest not, thoti thirsteth not enough. 
Thoti art a temporizmg thing, mean heart. 
Doivn-drawn thou pick ^ st straws and wretched stuffs 
Stooping as if the zuorld^s Jloor were the chart 
Of the long way thy lazy feet mtist tread. 
Thou dreafnest of the crown hujig o ^er thy head ; 
But that is safe — thou gatherest hair and fluff. 

A WOULD-BE mariner was entrusted by the 
officer in command with the responsible 
task of steering. He was instructed to keep the 
ship in hne with a certain star. The green hand 
for a Httle while followed the directions he had 
received ; but suddenly the peculiar motion of the 
vessel indicated that something was wrong. When 
the skipper hurriedly reached the deck he saw in 
a moment that the helmsman had departed from 
his course. He remonstrated : ** Did I not tell 
you to steer by yonder star? " ** Yes, your honor; 
and I am still steering by a star, and one larger 
and brighter than the star you chose." But it was 
not the right one. A wrong guide, like a wrong 
road, can never lead to the right port. 

Everything depends on the aim ; for aim is but 
the star that determines the direction of our jour- 
ney. When Erasmus wrote : '* First I buy Greek 
books, and then clothes," it was evident that he 
was certain to excel in scholarship and to cut only 
36 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 37 

a poor figure in fashion. What a comment on the 
entire career of Gustavus Adolphus the sentiment 
attributed to him in the opening sentence of his 
biography : "God grant me so to Hve that I may 
ever hve with Christ, and on earth may never blush 
for my own deeds." And when Ulrich von Hutten, 
referring to the Reformation, exclaimed : " Men be- 
gan to awake and to live," he simply acknowledged 
the power of the new ideals, aspirations, and ambi- 
tions on moribund mediaevalism. As these ideals 
and aims aroused society, they likewise fixed the 
direction of its development. They constituted, as 
it were, a stream which, like the current flowing 
toward and past the inhospitable North Pole region, 
had only to be trusted for the adventurous bark to 
be borne outward, slowly but surely, toward the 
open sea of modern life. 

What to strive for in such a world as this is an 
inquiry of no mean import, and as it has engaged 
the attention of the most thoughtful, it cannot be 
safely ignored by any one who would not blight 
his own existence. Only the unhappily shallow- 
minded, the egotistic nullities, the artificialities and 
stupidities among our young people will presume 
to set out on the untried ocean without charts, 
compass, and clearly defined destination. Many 
who would have counted it suicidal to hurl them- 
selves from a tower or into the sea, have unhesi- 
tatingly and sportively cast themselves into the 
deeper waters of life, whose hungry waves were 
ready to swallow them, without acquiring the first 
lesson in the art of swimming and without having 
ascertained where the landing-place was to be found, 



38 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

or indeed, whether any landing-place were accessible 
after such a desperate plunge. The same blind folly 
is still committed. Multitudes go without knowing 
whither they go and apparently little caring. They 
rashly steer by any star, even by any flashing meteor, 
and wonder when at the last they find themselves 
helpless among the rocks ; and in many instances 
— alas, all too many ! — when a light is sought, it is 
of the ig?iis fatims, phosphorescent kind, bom of 
marshy dreams and of the decomposition of moral 
principle. 

Bad as it may be to have no definite purpose in 
life, it is even worse to be governed by ignoble 
ambitions. It may be possible, though not likely, 
if a man is simply indifferent to his course he may 
by accident arrive at some desirable bourne ; but 
if he is deliberately headed toward what is base, 
trivial, and inconsequential, the result is unavoid- 
able. He is in these circumstances not merely 
drifting toward probable destruction ; he is really 
driving thitherward. I do not say that by divine 
interposition he cannot be rescued fVom his other- 
wise inevitable fate, for that were to deny the 
gospel ; but I do claim that he is in danger of 
becoming so strong in the strength of his poor 
conceptions of what is desirable, and so weak in the 
weakness of his judgment, as to be eternally fixed 
in his unworthy and undignified ambitions. There 
comes to him that fixity of character which deter- 
mines destiny. Happy indeed the man or woman, 
who at the last and after much deviation from 
the nobler ideals, has been brought to the exalted 
conclusion so impressively expressed by Dryden : 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 39 

My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires ; 
My manhood, long misled by wandering fires, 
Followed false lights ; and when their glimpse was gone 
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. 

Such was I, such by nature still I am ; 

Be thine the glory and be mine the shame ! 

Good life be now my task ; my doubts are done. 

But why not make this sublime task — a good life— 
the end and aim of endeavor from the beginning, 
instead of waiting until the misspent years render 
it more than difficult, burdening it when under- 
taken with bitter and remorseful memories ? If this 
is to be done, ignoble ambitions must be aban- 
doned ; and concerning these, concerning their 
character and pernicious influence, I address the 
men of to-morrow in my present message. 

Among certain slang words now in circulation, 
there is one which I may be excused for quoting, 
as it very pertinently, if not classically, describes 
an infatuation not uncommon in our day. The 
term is ''stuck," and of some youths it is said, 
**They are stuck on themselves" ; that is, they can- 
not get beyond themselves ; they are arrested and 
held fast by their own personality ; they admire it 
and to a torturing degree seek the admiration of 
others ; and their supreme ambition is to be idol- 
ized by their contemporaries. For this they live, 
for this they dress, and for this they scheme, lie, 
and attitudinize. Beyond this paltry craving, which 
in its essence is pure egoism and selfishness, they 
have no aspirations. They are everything to them- 
selves and feel that they ought to be everything to 
every one else. Indeed, they seem to imagine that 



40 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

the infinite resources of the Creator have been 
exhausted in their production and that they are 
therefore entitled to as much tender regard as any 
other preciosity or chef-d ceuvre. 

An example of this mountainous self-conceit we 
have in Absalom, David's vain-glorious son, at whose 
tomb the boys of Palestine are still taught to cast 
stones. He was evidently a victim to this passion- 
ate infatuation. It is written ''that, in all Israel, 
there was none to be so much praised as he for his 
beauty ; from the sole of his foot even to the crown 
of his head, there was no blemish in him." He 
was, or thought he was, the handsomest man of his 
time, and — what appears to be equally clear — if he 
was, he knew it ; for it is added in his biographical 
sketch, that when he "polled his head," he took 
pains *'to weigh the hair," showing how enamored 
he was of his personal charms, just as youths in 
our day may exhibit similar weakness by the twirl 
they give their moustaches, by their swell attire, 
and by affectations of speech and gait. It is re- 
lated of an English graduate, that as he was leaving 
the university, he was thus addressed by the head 
master: *'Mr. Blank, the tutors think highly of 
you ; your fellow -students think highly of you ; but 
nobody thinks so highly of you as you think of 
yourself" This estimate, I have no doubt, fully 
accords with Absalom's valuation of himself 
Where such swollen egoism prevails, the peril is 
that in a crisis the rights of home, country, and 
humanity will be accounted of small worth in com- 
parison with the pleasure and ease of the individual. 

But even if vanity does not end in calamity, it is 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 4I 

itself a kind of calamity, a kind of reflection on the 
sterling qualities of the family where it has been 
developed, and a lasting reproach to the parents 
who failed to suppress its progress. Such a char- 
acter is itself a disgrace to any household. The 
lad who is an *' admirable Crichton" and an Adonis 
in his own opinion generally feels that the world 
owes him a living and that he need not be indus- 
trious ; that he may with dignity live on the earn- 
ings of mother and sisters ; may borrow likewise 
from dull business plodders ; and ultimately marry 
a rich girl who will be delighted to give her gold 
in exchange for his inflated and feather-headed 
personality. Moreover, he is a stranger to deep 
convictions, is at best a silly trifler, a being in whom 
we find magnified nearly all the littlenesses which 
have defaced mankind. How can he fail to bring 
a blush to every honest brow and a sense of shame 
to every manly heart, and especially, how can he 
be otherwise than a source of constant humiliation 
and mortification to virtuous parents? However 
the deluded mother may stand entranced as her 
poor frog of a boy is puffing himself up to the 
dimensions of an ox, she must certainly hang her 
head when the public punctures his pretensions 
and the inevitable collapse follows. It may be 
hinted, by way of extenuation, that some very 
remarkable men have been conspicuously vain. 
Admitted ; but it is likewise true that just in pro- 
portion as they yielded to this miserable folly, they 
decreased in dignity and lost favor with the* world. 
In their cases too, it should be remembered they 
had natural gifts or had achieved successes which 



42 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



palliated their pride ; but in the Absalom type of 
self-admiration they are destitute of genius and 
talents. But even when individuals are genuinely 
brilliant and deservedly famous, exhibitions of vanity 
detract very seriously from the glory of their great- 
ness. What do you think of the madness of Car- 
dinal Richelieu, who regarded himself as equal to 
any task, and who, envying Corneille, prepared a 
dull and stupid tragedy called ''Europe," and sent 
it anonymously to the Academy? The Academy 
promptly returned it, and the enraged cardinal tore 
up his unfortunate manuscript; but, on second 
thought, he gathered the fragments, had the whole 
copied again, and sent it over his own signature. 
It was of course immediately accepted. Do we 
not concur in what Isaac Disraeli wrote regarding 
this famous statesman? ''Vanity in this cardinal 
leveled a great genius. He who would attempt to 
display universal excellence will be impelled to 
practise meannesses and to act follies which, if he 
has the least sensibility, must occasion him many a 
pang and many a blush." It would seem then 
that this small vice is sufficiently lowering even to 
degrade a prince of the church, and its indulgence 
on the part of those who have little in the way of 
vigor or of virtue to set over against it must always 
be regarded as in itself a dishonor. 

I have often wondered how far this self-idolatry 
accounts for the persistent survival of the caste 
spirit in this nineteenth century of equality and 
fraternity. In the heat and enthusiasm of political, 
patriotic, and philanthropic meetings, we usually 
insist with lavish eloquence that all men are our 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 43 

brothers and that race and creed are alike indif- 
ferent. The sentiment is duly applauded, and 
speaker and audience work themselves up to a 
pitch of virtuous satisfaction. All this is delight- 
ful, elevating, encouraging ; but next day a black 
bishop arrives in such a city as Boston, and finds it 
difficult to obtain shelter in any of the foremost 
hotels. That he is a gentleman, a scholar, a Chris- 
tian, a high official, makes no difference ; his skin 
is not of the aristocratic hue. A mild outbreak of 
indignation follows, in which it appears that every 
one blames his neighbor for the outrage, and all 
are agreed that somebody has acted in a very cen- 
surable manner. But who is the culprit? The 
hotels are condemned by the newspapers ; the 
hotels, in turn, condemn the public ; and the pub- 
lic, being a kind of composite personality, like a 
composite photographic portrait where individuali- 
ties blend and are lost, growls out anathemas 
against an indefinite offender whose precise name 
and address cannot be discovered. And it may 
never be possible to clothe the guilty wretch in 
flesh and blood ; for probably he is only a spook, 
phantom, or ghost of ancient prejudices which in 
the past have discriminated in favor of rank, wealth, 
and lineage. Nevertheless, the curious fact ap- 
pears ; no one is willing to acknowledge the ghost 
as haunting his own life, and yet nearly every one 
bows down and renders him homage. 

In an intelligent and affluent community of Mas- 
sachusetts, a colored gentleman purchased an ele- 
gant estate ; but he and his family have been 
ignored by society, and to all intents and purposes 



44 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

are isolated and quarantined. Here, again, it is 
merely a question of skin. Constitutional amend- 
ments and local laws have in vain antagonized 
these absurd, unchristian, and undemocratic dis- 
tinctions. Society blandly insists on upholding the 
brotherhood of man in theory and on the right to 
disregard it in practice. Nor does it only act thus 
hypocritically in dealing with the blacks ; it is often 
as severe and soulless in its treatment of the whites ; 
and what is worse, the army of the nation — an in- 
stitution, by the way, upheld by the people and 
presumably in touch with those ''inalienable rights" 
which it is designed to defend — has become the 
veiy hotbed of this miserable caste system which 
disfigures our modern life. Recently a lieutenant 
resigns ; is practically compelled to resign by the 
attitude of his brother officers and their wives 
toward him on account of his marriage. In this 
free country, in an army supposed to represent 
freedom, he dares marry the daughter of a ser- 
geant. The woman he weds is educated, bright, — 
in a word, a lady ; her parents are worthy, upright 
people, and the young man himself an exemplary 
and promising officer. They are all apparently as 
fully entitled to respectful esteem as any of their 
associates, most of whom, like themselves, have 
come of very commonplace though thoroughly re- 
spectable stock, and have been educated at public 
expense, part of which has been contributed in the 
form of taxes by the families of privates and cor- 
porals. Notwithstanding, the lieutenant and his 
wife are snubbed and ostracized. The health of 
the husband, never strong, gives way, and this is 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 45 

made the ostensible reason for court inquiry, and 
he is compelled to abandon the service. The 
country loses a valuable officer ; and, worse than 
all, the father of the bride, well advanced in years, 
is moved to a remote frontier post as though he 
had been guilty of an offense. And all the daily 
newspapers had to say on the subject was to tell 
the story and term it a "Romance of Army Life." 
Remember, however, the scene is laid in America, 
not in Russia. And we are being urged to increase 
this military establishment and render it, in some 
measure, the rival of European war forces. 

There is, in my opinion, no need for any material 
addition to our soldiery. Our militia has proved 
itself equal to any emergency and doubtless will 
in the future. Our volunteers are the hope of free- 
dom in every perilous hour. But a regular army, 
where social tyrannies are tolerated and where 
arbitrary authority interferes to uphold senseless 
and snobbish distinctions, especially in an age 
when, in other lands, endeavors are being made to 
end such monstrous absurdities, cannot be enlarged 
without peril to the commonwealth. It is out of 
sympathy with the liberalizing and equalizing prin- 
ciples of our government, and the less we have of 
it — unless its autocratic traditions are changed — the 
better. I know that order, discipline, and obedi- 
ence are indispensable ; but what these have to do 
with the wife a soldier may choose, provided she is 
reputable and fitted for her station, I fail to per- 
ceive ; and if the littlenesses chronicled in "The 
Romance of the Army" are part of the system 
that militarism grows, then the doughty warrior 



46 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

will in course of time probably come to treat the 
civilian with contempt, and become the pernicious 
means of intensifying and perpetuating race and 
rank prejudices which are fatal to the growth and 
glory of our country. 

Thus, according to Herbert Spencer,^ " Roman 
life, entirely militant, led to a contempt for all non- 
militant occupations (as happens everywhere)." 
Reforms are manifestly necessary. The regular 
army is entitled to honor for its brave achieve- 
ments, and it ought to be courageous enough to 
efface the blemish complained of; however, a silken, 
shoddy aristocracy may prefer to retain it as a kind 
of alleged beauty spot. Soldiers should be too 
sincere, thorough, and manly for such trifling, 
especially as it is only the expression of a desire to 
acquire personal distinction at the expense of some 
one else. The source of the evil is unquestionably 
a subtle form of self-adulation. Enamoured of 
himself, the man does all he can to resent social 
classification with others ; and the less able and 
worthy he is, the more he is likely to insist on en- 
forcing artificial distinctions by which he may be 
surrounded with a halo to which common clay 
must not aspire. When the only perceptible dif- 
ference between individuals is the hue of the skin 
or the caste of the features, he who is worshiping 
his own image will, in all probability, consider his 
white integument as exceedingly meritorious. • He 
who has only an epaulette to separate him from 
others, and who has never been remarkable for de- 

^ *' Contemporary Review," August, 1895. 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 47 

votion and heroism, not unexpectedly may try to 
add to his own importance by discourtesies and in- 
solences against his official subordinates. To admit 
many persons to recognition or intimacy is viewed 
by some social leaders as jeopardizing their own 
position, and therefore, lest they should decline in 
public esteem, they take offensive pains to prove that 
they rank high in a very exclusive set. This gath- 
ering of their draperies around them and standing 
apart they think will excite wondering admiration, 
and they are gratified. They are to be pitied. As 
a rule, such persons have so little of genuine worth 
to be proud of that they are forced to these miser- 
able shifts. They cannot win renown or homage 
by their genius, gifts, and graces ; and as they 
must be extolled and flattered if they are not to 
die from self-mortification, they adopt the cheap 
method of arrogating to themselves superiority on 
account of adventitious circumstances. Even in 
some extreme cases, it would seem that this dis- 
eased egoism prefers unenviable notoriety to 
privacy in reputable obscurity. 

Closely allied with this despicable ambition is 
one equally shallow and meagre. I refer to the 
consuming fondness for display, a weakness that 
has brought wretchedness on unnumbered house- 
holds during the long history of human inanities, 
and which is scarcely separable from the corroding 
thirst for adulation. In some instances, however, 
ostentatious display may be sought that others — 
wife or children — may be socially advantaged, and 
so may come to have in it a grain or two of disin- 
terestedness. But even this concession does not 



48 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

relieve the ambition from its essential pettiness and 
debasing frivolousness. Multitudes in every age 
have believed that they were sent to earth that 
they might shine and that they might excite 
wonder and astonishment by their extraordinaiy 
pretensions, and they have consequently thought 
of little else and have bent every energy toward 
the accomplishment of their meretricious mission. 
Neither have they always been select in the means 
employed so long as the silly object was attained. 
The past and the present are strewn with the 
wrecks of this illusion. One among the most 
frightful examples of the disastrous force of this 
morbid appetite is furnished by Nero. His thirst 
for applause was simply insatiable. He posed as 
the first of charioteers, of musicians, and of actors, 
and demanded homage as such ; but praise only 
made him greedy and voracious for more praise. 
None of his councillors could prevent his amusing 
the Roman populace by a wild performance on 
the stage, and he arranged for the organization of 
some five thousand young men that he might be 
suitablv cheered and flattered. Moreover, he made 
extensive tours, visiting Naples and then Greece, 
that he might win renown as a public singer. 
From these itineraries he brought home some two 
thousand wreaths and the memory of many victo- 
ries ; for audiences, however much they may have 
scorned the buffoon, could hardly fail to have 
fooled an emperor whom they feared to the top of 
his bent. This royal strolling player, who had had 
the privilege of being taught by Seneca, on various 
pretexts, all more or less connected with his vanity 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 49 

and his insane idea to shine and shine by himself, 
murdered Brittanicus, son of Claudius, and even 
sacrificed his own wife and mother to his appre- 
hensions or his fears. Well did he deserve the 
severe and scathing description which the eloquent 
Castelar has drawn of his character : 

Here in these gardens he walked, clothed in purple, 
shod with azure buskins, his temples crowned with laurel, 
his eyes fixed on the heavens, in his hand a cithern, on his 
tongue ancient Greek verses, and in his heart evil passions, 
like a demon who tries to be a god, and possessing for the 
moment the divinity of art, turns and falls into the abyss. 
He was consul, tribune, dictator, Caesar, sovereign pontiff — 
all blessed him, all adored him ; but, alas ! he was despised 
by his own conscience. 

James the First of England was in many respects 
a very different man from Nero ; but he was singu- 
larly like him in his love for display. It was his 
aim to excel in what he called kingcraft, and in 
parading his eminent superiority as a ruler he was 
guilty of dissimulation and baseness, and by his 
pedantry and childish folly became the laughing- 
stock of Europe. Contemporaries spoke of him as 
Queen James and of his predecessor as King Eliza- 
beth. He was, indeed, an absurd figure, and as I 
read history, by his insufferable vanity prepared 
the way for those troubles in England concerning 
the royal prerogative that culminated in civil war. 

But it is not only on the throne that these vain- 
glorious creatures try to shine ; they even desecrate 
the church. Watson, in his ''Life of Warburton," 
refers to the subject of his biography as one who 
"sought to strike with temporary astonishment 

D 



50 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

rather than to profit by permanent instruction, and 
who was content to glare like a transient meteor 
rather than to shine with the perpetual radiance of 
the sun." He would brook no rival, and could 
only labor for effect, even his great work, "The 
Legation of Moses," demonstrating his own learn- 
ing and not his hero's divine appointment. Think 
of such a portraiture as the one written by Churchill 
descriptive of this prelate being even tolerably 
accurate : 

He was so proud that should he meet 
The twelve apostles in the street, 
He' d turn his nose up at them all 
And shove his Saviour from the wall. 
He was so mean (meanness and pride 
Still go together side by side) 
That he would cringe and creep, be civil 
And hold a stirrup for the devil. 

No wonder that such a man was despised, that he 
lived practically without friends, and died without 
even the poor compliment of an obituary in the 
newspapers. 

And who can tell how much of the diseased 
sentimentality that marked Lord Byron and how 
much of his restlessness and misery was due to 
his excessive desire to be observed? Rogers, 
the poet, noticing the singular abstemiousness of 
the author of **Childe Harold," at last inquired 
of Hobhouse how long he thought Byron would 
continue to decline soup, meat, and wine, and 
was answered, ''Just so long as you pay any atten- 
tion to his habits." A little incident will often 
reveal a great many things, and a passage such as 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 5 I 

this in the life of Byron confirms the impression 
that he too, in some things, planned and acted for 
the pit. Naturally, when the show was nearly 
ended and the curtain was about to fall on the 
tinsel and colored lights and the ''dead-sea fruit" 
of his scenic career was in his hands, he mournfully 
wrote : 

Through many a clime ' tis mine to go 
With many a retrospection curs' t ; 

And all my solace is to know, 

Whate* er betides V ve known the worst 

Other eminent names in literature have erred in 
the direction in which Byron erred, and have been 
very much like Chateaubriand, who, according to 
Talleyrand, always became deaf when people ceased 
talking about him. They have made the flashing 
and the corruscating the leading objects of their am- 
bition, and have prostituted genius to theatrical 
trumpery and temporary popularity. They could 
not, consequently, escape the sense of personal 
degradation, and they certainly have been instru- 
mental in rendering others wretched as well as 
themselves. 

Moreover, it is difficult to see how such miseries 
are to be avoided in any station of life where 
people are anxious, above all things else, to shine. 
You seem to be mortified, my young friend, that 
you do not cut so striking a figure in society as 
others of your own age. The impression grows, in 
what you are partial enough to call your mind, that 
you must do something to attract proper attention 
to yourself, and straightway you begin to plan with 
that end in view. Well, you have entered on a 



52 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

very dangerous and slipper}^' road. Other youthful 
people with your ambition have made crooked 
paths to their feet They have borrowed money 
when they had no expectation of means to repay, 
or have pilfered from their employers, or they have 
kept back their earnings from their parents and 
have condescended to no end of contemptible 
tricks, that they might dress showily and that they 
might be intoxicated with the envious congratula- 
tions of worthless companions. These unfortunates 
advertise by the great stress they lay on their 
clothes that there is nothing else about them 
worthy of consideration ; but, in spite of momen- 
tary gratification, the day of reverses will darkly 
dawn. Father and mother will come at last to 
know the shallowness and sinfulness of their son 
and will bow their heads with shame, and not un- 
likely the community will discover and expose the 
sham and fraud, and dishonor will sully a name 
that has heretofore been unblemished. 

Perhaps the offender may be a daughter, and 
the consequences of what was at first a folly may 
prove even more disastrous and disgraceful. The 
child was fair, and she desired only to decorate 
her beauty. Do we not seek elegant settings for 
precious stones ? Do we not also study effect when 
we arrange our flowers? And shall she be blamed 
for enhancing her charms by ornamentation and 
for so crowning her loveliness as to render it more 
brilliant and potent? Thus at least she reasons, 
and then, if poor, the struggle to procure the means 
for the display will be terrible. If determined 
above all things to be honest, she will deny herself 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 53 

proper food and shelter, and even comfortable and 
necessary underclothing, that her limited resources 
may be lavished on external dress and finery. 
Yea, and girls have been known, when the sense of 
honor has grown dull within them, to sacrifice more 
than the body — to hazard the soul for the gratifica- 
tion of their vanity. They were betrayed, but not 
by love ; they were debased, but not by broken 
vows. Their womanly birthright they sold for a 
mess of pottage, for a fading silk, a carriage, jewels, 
and what not — trumpery all, not worth the having 
in comparison with a maiden's honor; the price- 
less and inestimable gem surrendered that the 
victim of the fiendish barter may startle some 
equally vain acquaintances by the gorgeousness of 
her equipage or astound her simple family by 
the magnificence of her attire and the pretentious- 
ness of her manners. Could she but realize it, the 
suspicion felt, though for veiy shame's sake not 
avowed, by father and mother brings with it a sense 
of pain so keen that they could wish her wrapped 
in a beggar's shroud and coffined in the humblest 
grave before they had seen the sin-soiled gewgaws 
by which her whole soul is fascinated ; and if sus- 
picion is forced to give way to conviction of the 
truth, how shall these parents hold up their heads 
and how shall they ever look their neighbors in the 
face? Their home has been defamed; life has 
been rendered desolate ; their child has fallen, 
fallen, fallen ! And the whirlwind of her sin may 
yet sweep her into the river and leave them nothing 
but her bloated, sodden form and the melancholy 
dirge in their hearts : 



54 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 

The saddest are these — it might have been. 

Ignoble, surely, the ambition that centers in 
parade, splash, splurge, and show. But even the 
love of frippery and pageantry, bad as it is, cannot 
compare in disastrous results with the spirit of law- 
lessness which sometimes rules despotically over 
the minds of the young. To not a few of those 
w^ho shall be the men of to-morrow, the chief good, 
the good for which they thirst, is simply indepen- 
dence and irresponsibility. They would have no 
sceptre over them, no governing principle in them 
— nothing, indeed, that can be recognized as en- 
dued with sovereign authority. They desire to live 
for their own gratification, unanswerable to any 
one, and from the first are imperious, self-willed, 
and reckless. All restraint they denounce, all 
wholesome regulations they despise, and they con- 
stantly fret and chafe against every moral or social 
hindrance to their self-indulgence. They desire to 
be free. This is their ambition. All bonds they 
would break. They would assert themselves — 
w^ould be uncontrolled and unhampered by con- 
ventionalities or by courts. Their ignoble ambition 
is to be outlaws in broadcloth, cared for and min- 
istered unto by civilization. 

It should not be overlooked that the disposition 
to break through the settled order by which the 
individual is ruled in his own interest, and to set at 
naught that divine something in him called "con- 
science," can only lead to an anarchical career and 
to blighted hopes. This was realized at an oppor- 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 55 

tune moment by a friend of Paley, when the latter 
was a careless, tippling student at Christchurch 
College, Cambridge. About three o'clock in the 
morning, when the future author of the '' HorcB 
Paulince'' was preparing to retire after an evening 
wasted, a knock disturbed him, and a youth entered 
and began to talk in an excited manner: *' Paley, 
I have come to talk with you ; I cannot sleep be- 
cause I am forced to think about you. You know 
who I am. I have plenty of money and it does 
not matter what I do at college. I can afford a 
life of indolence, but you cannot, and you have got 
a good head, and I have not. Now, I have come 
to tell you that if you waste your time with us 
worthless fellows, I'll cut you and will call you 
friend no more." The reproof came like a thun- 
derbolt. All poor Paley could do was, in a dazed 
kind of way, to answer, ''Thank you"; but that 
moment terminated his recklessness and wayward- 
ness. He bent his neck to the yoke, submitted to 
discipline, and became a luminary of the church, 
glorifying God with his mighty intellect. Our own 
beloved Admiral David Farragut was likewise on 
the eve of blighting his career through irregularities 
and through self-reliance, plunging into self-indul- 
gence, when he was happily delivered. He has 
told the story of his folly and of his coming to his 
senses in this characteristic way : 

''Would you like to know how I was enabled to 
serve my country? It was all owing to a resolution 
I formed when I was ten years of age. My father 
was sent down to New Orleans with the little navy 
we then had to look after the treason of Burr. I 



56 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

accompanied him as cabin boy. I had some quali- 
ties that I thought made a man of me. I could 
swear like an old salt, could drink as stiff a glass of 
grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could 
smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards 
and fond of gambling in every shape. At the close 
of the dinner one day, my father turned everybody 
out of the cabin, locked the door, and said to me : 
'David, what do you mean to be?' 

" 'I mean to follow the sea.' 

"'Follow the sea. Yes, be a poor, miserable, 
drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed 
about the world, and die in some fever hospital in 
a foreign clime.' 

**'No,' I said, 'I'll .tread the quarter-deck and 
command, as you do.' 

"'No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter- 
deck with such principles as you have and such 
habits as you exhibit. You'll have to change your 
whole course of life if you ever become a man.' 

" My father left me and went on deck. I was 
stunned by the rebuke and overwhelmed with 
mortification. 'A poor, miserable, drunken sailor 
before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, 
and to die in some fever hospital.' That's my fate, 
is it? I'll change my life and change it at once. 
I will never utter another oath ; I will never drink 
another drop of intoxicating liquors ; I will never 
gamble. And, as God is my witness, I have kept 
those three vows to this hour." 

As we rejoice over these instances of rescue from 
the sans-culottism of man's insubordinate desires 
and aims, and think of others who have been 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 5/ 

whirled by their own unbridled appetites and pas- 
sions to destruction, we can hardly fail to perceive 
that anarchy in the life of the individual must reach 
beyond itself and tend to disorganize the life of the 
community. Chaotic in himself, how should it be 
expected of him that he reverence cosmos any- 
where ? Mob rule within naturally creates an 
affinity for mob rule without, and the uncrowned 
soul clamors for an uncrowned commonwealth. 
We here touch one of the gravest evils connected 
with ''triumphant democracy" everywhere, par- 
ticularly in America. Children in the United 
States are early taught the value of civil and relig- 
ious freedom ; but they do not appear to be as 
thoroughly instructed in the truth that personal lib- 
erty has its bounds and that its orbit is determined 
by the rights of other personalities. Hence, while 
law is set forth as ** master," unhappily license is 
^'mistress." Throughout the land there is a wide- 
spread tendency to evade legal enactments, as 
though statutes were made for the public at large, 
but not for the individual. Business itself, the suc- 
cess of which depends on system and accuracy, has 
also fallen into moral confusion and derangement. 
Very many contracts are not observed unless they 
are enforced by the dread of penalties ; obligations 
are not often honored if they can safely be broken ; 
pledges given to a confiding people are rarely re- 
deemed ; and vows assumed, of the most sacred 
import, are treated as a matter of course, as a form, 
not strictly binding on any one. Adulterations, 
frauds, cheating, *'foxy" haggling and chaffering, 
are the commonplaces of commerce ; and so shame- 



58 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

less have even prominent capitalists become, that, 
having sold valuable properties to foreigners at ab- 
surdly exorbitant rates, they have openly schemed 
and combined to strip what they have sold of its 
worth by organizing an opposition business of the 
same nature. This is plundering the Egyptians 
with a vengeance ; this is getting even with the 
Britishers in a manner not very creditable to our 
integrity, compelling them to buy us off that 
their original investment may not be entirely sac- 
rificed. I am not saying that the English are im- 
maculate, for I know they are not ; but if they are 
as heartless in their trade transactions as we are, 
what a comment this conscienceless dealing is on 
our Christian civilization, especially as church- 
members are as prominent in these questionable 
affairs as others. 

A religious profession is no security against dis- 
honesty, trickery, and faithlessness to engagements ; 
neither is it an assurance that debts will be paid or 
that fair measure will be given. Lack of principle 
is the crying curse of the times in the church and 
out of it ; and everywhere the individual appears to 
feel as an imperator or dictator, endued with irre- 
sponsible power, who is justified in having his own 
way at any cost to others, and in carrying things 
with a high hand, if he can, without regard to the 
interests of his fellows. A facile, pliant, sleek, lax, 
and shuffling generation is this, that cares little for 
strict standards of duty, rigidly interpreted, except 
as they serve to check some rascals from acting up 
to the full measure of possible rascality. It is not 
then surprising, where such looseness prevails, that 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 59 

young people in America should fail to realize the 
necessity of imposing rational bounds on their im- 
pulses, desires, and appetites, and that they should 
become weak and self-indulgent. 

Their headiness and insubordination have passed 
into a proverb, and their disregard of parental 
authority is the common talk of the world. A book 
with a *' bad boy" in it is one of the most popular 
and profitable forms of modern literature. Heads 
of families read it and joke about it, and not unnat- 
urally their precious offspring consider the hero a 
model to be copied. We have, in almost every com- 
munity, precocious smokers, precocious drinkers, 
and precocious candidates for the penitentiary and 
the gallows. A pungent writer has recently in- 
quired: *'Do you want to know where a boy 
usually begins to be fast? With a cigarette. It 
is his first step in bravado, resistance of sober 
morality, and a bold step in disobedience." The 
fi.rst step is rapidly followed by a second. A highly 
cultivated and well-informed lady, who spends much 
of her time in the country, assured me that, to her 
certain knowledge, mere lads, in quiet moral retreats 
among the Vermont hills, often combine their earn- 
ings or their pilferings and import a keg of beer and 
drink until they are stupefied. Nor is this the sum 
of their reputed misdoings. They are sometimes 
discovered in bands, plotting to plunder houses ; 
and where this is not the case, they are frequently 
found to offend against public morality in ways too 
heinous for description in these pages. 

Thousands on thousands in city and country are 
allowed to do just as they please. The young. 



60 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

innocent creatures must not be coerced ; they must 
be spared the indignit}^ of punishment ; and as a 
consequence they are insolent, independent, and 
violent Who shall presume to teach them, who 
shall dare discipline them, and who shall essay the 
conquest of their rebellious will ? Not the average 
mother, who is often weak and hj^sterical, and who 
in the majorit}" of instances is blindly devoted to 
her child and enamored even of his faults ; not 
surely, the average teacher, who is paid a mere pit- 
tance, is dependent for her support on the good- 
will of the communit}' and is frequently herself too 
immature to understand the significance of disobedi- 
ence in the scholar, and too timid, and perhaps 
not strong enough, to exercise her rightful authority, 
and possibly not even allowed to do so by a flabby, 
cedematous school board ; and certainly not the 
average father, who is not only too busy to bother 
about home affairs but is restrained from too direct 
interference by the consciousness of lawlessness on 
his own part as reprehensible as any act of which 
his hapful son may have been guilty. Thus self- 
indulgence is catered to, is fostered, and at last be- 
comes the only recognizable determining force in 
conduct 

That this ungovemableness, grounded in selfish 
vanit}^, should culminate in gracelessness, vicious- 
ness, dissoluteness, knaver}^, and every kind of 
flagrant profligacy, is only to be expected ; and 
that it should be altogether reckless of the sorrow 
and infamy it brings on others is only too natural 
for it to be astounding. There are many homes 
to-day shrouded in perpetual gloom, because auda- 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 6 1 

cious, uncontrollable, and self-willed youth spurned 
parental wisdom and took up arms against the 
moral order and safety of society. Such traitors 
are culpable. They array themselves against au- 
thority, they madly strike against the supremacy 
of right, and they exalt their variable and treach- 
erous wills as sovereign — unanswerable either to 
God or man. 

It is part of my present message to remind the 
men of to-morrow that no conceivable pleasure de- 
rived or derivable from the gratification of these ig- 
noble ambitions can ever compensate for the unutter- 
able wretchedness they will inflict on themselves and 
others. They lead to grievous outrages against the 
peace and honor of dearest relatives. To foster 
them allies the youth with the grandson of Andron- 
icus, who was basely false to his grandsire ; and with 
the ignominious son of Henry IV., ready on the 
blue Moselle to fight or to betray his father ; and 
with the duke of Rothesay, plotting for the over- 
throw of his parent and king, James III. ; and with 
the contemptible descendants of Francesco Sforza, 
who bartered all the dignities of their house for low 
and groveling gratification ; and in a word with 
all those who pull down what others have built up 
and who scorn what others have prized. Presumably, 
wayward young persons never seriously ponder the 
extent of the calamity they are ruthlessly causing ; 
and yet they are bringing to pass a disaster, the evil 
results of which cannot be computed. To scuttle 
a ship at sea, to betray a battle into an enemy's 
hands, to put the incendiary's torch to the inflam- 
mable property of a neighbor, to poison the wells 



62 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

that supply communities with water, are confessedly 
despicable acts, appalling and terrible in their con- 
sequences ; but they involve no greater degree of 
guilt, neither are they more pernicious in their 
effects than the course of conduct that ends in the 
breaking up and extirpation of a home. Remember 
that the family is the very corner-stone of the social 
fabric ; that it is the altar of purity, the highest 
school of virtue, the nursery of intelligence, and 
the acknowledged source of all that is sweetest and 
fairest in human life. How we are charmed by 
pictures and descriptions of its peace and felicity ! 
We sympathize with Heine when he writes, "The 
domestic man, who loves no music so well as his 
own kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing 
to him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces 
which others never dream of " ; and we echo the 
strains of Keble's gentle muse : 

Sweet is the smile of home ; the mutual look, 

When hearts are of each other sure; 
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook. 

The haunt of all affections pure. 

What shall we then say of youths and maidens 
who have no reverence for the sacredness of this 
retreat, and profane it by their silly self-inflation 
and morbid cravings and shatter forever its happi- 
ness? Are they deserving of less reproach than 
Benedict Arnold? Are they entitled to more con- 
sideration than Judas Iscariot? Were a party to 
be formed for the express purpose of abrogating 
home as an American institution, and were that 
party to plot and scheme for the success of the 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 63 

nefarious scheme, public indignation would express 
itself in unmistakable terms. Such designs would 
be greeted with howls of execration and with fierce 
anathemas, for it would be argued that they con- 
templated nothing short of the removal of the most 
effective barrier to the inroads of immorality and 
the retrogression of the race toward barbarism. 
Why should our idlers, our silly scamps, our self- 
indulgent and heartless sons and daughters, who 
are undermining the stability and influence of the 
family, be judged more leniently or be dealt with 
more tenderly than we would deal with those who 
might be guilty of the outrage we have imagined? 
These youthful foes to the well-being and integrity 
of the domestic institution ought assuredly to be 
informed of the blackness of their conduct and of 
the estimate in which it is held, and must be held, 
in the minds of all right-thinking people. They 
are warring against an ordinance of God, who 
"hath set the solitary in families," and they are 
devastating and destroying as pitilessly as Attila or 
Alaric. If they were to be assigned niches in the 
temple of infamy, they would rank with those 
monsters of iniquity whose names are a perpetual 
byword and a hissing. 

That this unmeasured reprobation of their fatu- 
ous ambitions is no more than deserved will, I 
think, be freely allowed by all persons who cor- 
dially consider the misery and desolation they cause 
to affectionate and honorable souls. Alas for Da- 
vid, when Absalom is in arms against his royal 
throne and life! What can he do? He can only 
anxiously watch for the coming of messengers, and 



64 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

when he learns the appalling news of victory, he 
cries out piteously and almost self-reproachfuUy : 
''Absalom, Absalom, my son Absalom, would God 
I had died for thee, my son, my son Absalom!" 
There are few passages in literature so full of 
deepest feeling and of poignant grief as this. As 
we read the words, we seem to see the heart all 
torn and wounded, shamed and sorrowful, anxious 
only to hide itself, regretting only that it had not 
perished long before that other heart had learned 
to beat so falsely. There is more of the whirlwind, 
more of cyclonic agony in the wrathful imprecation 
of Lear on undutiful Goneril : 

Let it stamp wTinkles in her brow of youth ! 
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks ; 

Turn all her mother' s pains and benefits 
To laughter and contempt ; that she may feel 
How sharper than a serpent' s tooth it is 
To have a thankless child. 

But somehow we are more affected and subdued 
by the wail, full of blighted hopes and yet of par- 
doning love, that rises from the stricken soul of 
David. Unlike the CEdipus Colonus of Sophocles, 
he addresses no denunciation against his son ; nor, 
like the Theseus of Racine, does he call down the 
vengeance of a Neptune on a Hippolytus. There 
is rather anguish than anger in the moan of the 
royal Hebrew parent, an anguish so profound as to 
arouse in us honest indignation against the unhappy 
culprit ; and doubtless this type of sorrow has never 
ceased from the hour when the psalmist gave vent 
to his lamentation until now. As these lines are 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 65 

penned, there are parents whose hopes and joys 
have been extinguished by ungrateful children, 
and they are weeping with their heads bowed, but 
not for themselves so much as for their loved and 
erring ones. ''Would God I had died for thee," 
is the sad refrain of many a dirge to-day. As the 
boy, stupid and maudlin from strong drink, is 
brought home and laid upon the couch, some 
mother wrings her hands and murmurs: "Would 
God I had died for thee!" Or, as some youth is 
marched to jail for robbing his employer, driven to 
crime for the sake of gratifying his foolish vanity, 
or is expelled from association with honorable men, 
or is branded as a cheat and a gambler, or is slain 
in a drunken brawl, or wearied with himself and 
his futilities ends his wretched course with a rope 
or pistol, parents crushed and distracted are ex- 
claiming, as they have in all the centuries, "My 
son, my son, would God I had died for thee !" 

And is it likely that he who inflicts such wrongs 
and miseries shall escape unharmed and lie down 
in peace? Not at all. He who lives for show and 
strives to gratify absurd ambitions will be com- 
pelled to pay the penalty, and his irrational and 
shallow-brained conduct of life will be laid bare 
to the scoffing scrutiny of a mocking universe. 
Madame de Stael once remarked that she "never 
committed an error that was not the cause of a 
disaster" ; and if we may credit the words of an 
inspired philosopher, "His own iniquities shall 
take the wicked himself," the disaster must in 
some degree be determined by the character of 
the error. Devotion to display leads naturally to 

£ 



66 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

unenviable notoriety, morbid craving for applause 
to unmistakable hissing, and heartless self-indul- 
gence to unmeasured and unpitying condemnation. 
A vivid illustration of the confusion and disgrace 
that necessarily overtakes the garish wrong-doer 
was recently presented in one of London's courts 
of justice. A young man was brought before the 
magistrate for smashing glass and for other lawless 
conduct in a public-house, and the rebuke admin- 
istered by Sir John Bridge ought to have convinced 
the culprit that splash and splurge can only end in 
shame and sorrow. "I know nothing," said Sir 
John, ** which speaks so badly of the middle classes 
of this country as the enormous number of young 
men there are who, finding that their fathers have 
been successful in trade or profession, think they 
need not work. One sees that everywhere there 
are far too many of these idle rogues, as I had 
almost called them. Of course, as they do no 
work, they get into mischief" The difficulty in 
these cases. Sir John proceeded, is to know what 
punishment to impose. As a rule, the punishment 
falls on the parents. "If you fine them, it comes 
out of the father's pocket; if you send them to 
prison, it comes out of the mother's heart. Men 
like you," the magistrate concluded, addressing the 
culprit, ''are too heartless to feel the degradation 
of imprisonment or the disgrace of causing your 
father to spend money which perhaps ought to go 
to your sister or other members of your family." 
How bedraggled the fine feathers of these fine 
birds appear after such a castigation as this ! What 
a come-down this to their vanity and to the admi- 



CHERISHING IGNOBLE AMBITIONS 6/ 

ration they covet and for which they sacrifice so 
much ! 

During the revolution of 1848 in Paris, a curious 
thing occurred — one of the most curious of all the 
motley changes that have taken place in that vast 
city. While the city was in confusion and the 
Provisional Government was seeking a head, a man 
dressed in the uniform of a general of the First 
Republic was suddenly introduced and the an- 
nouncement was made, ** C est le citoyen gouverneur 
de r Hotel de Ville T' The story of his elevation 
is as follows : His name was Chateaurenaud, and 
he was a singer of moderate talents at the Opera 
National. While political excitement was running 
high in the streets he put his head out of one of the 
theatre windows. He was in the military costume 
of a part he was rehearsing, and the mob seeing 
him, after the manner of mobs cried out, ** A gen- 
eral, a general !" and without delay or inquiry he 
was hurried along and was throned as governor. 
Lamartine even ratified the choice and for two 
short weeks the play-actor kinged it with the best 
of them. I wonder while the glamor lasted if he 
ever accepted the illusion as reality and tried to 
convince himself as did Shakespeare's hero : 

Am I a lord ? . . . 

Or do I dream ? or have I dream' d till now ? 

I do not sleep : I see, I hear, I speak ; 

I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things — 

Upon my life, I am a lord, indeed, 

And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly. 

But the waking hour came to Sly and Chateau- 
renaud alike, and both were compelled to realize 



68 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

that all their state was mere paste and glitter. 
Neither one nor the other had been a real chief and 
leader, only a theatrical figure, the center of mock- 
ing mummery and sumptuous spectacularism ; and 
in the end the pompous pageantry which sur- 
rounded them could not compensate for the vexa- 
tion and mortification which it entailed. Thus for 
a time, young men, you may be placed in a posi- 
tion by others to deceive yourselves and the world, 
and you may be courted and flattered, and your 
vanity may be intoxicated by the homage you re- 
ceive ; but the hour will strike when this fantastic 
nonsense must end, when you and others will 
know the incense to be undeserved, and when the 
supreme destinies will demonstrate with crushing 
force and withering sarcasm that honor and happi- 
ness cannot be sacrificed to the swaggering inanities 
of egotistic heartlessness without winged vengeance 
overtaking the transgressor. 



Ill 

MIGRATING TO THE CITY 

The monster London. . . 
Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, 
And all the fools that crowd thee so, 
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast, 
A village less than Lslington wilt grow 
A solitude almost. 

THE poet Cowley may be right. Who knows ? 
London has been called the '* modern Baby- 
lon." But how then shall we name Paris, New 
York, and Chicago ? Are they not all very much 
alike ? The home of the Plantagenets and the 
home of the Puritans differ rather in extent than in 
character, and there is scarcely a vice or a folly 
fostered in the capital of the Tudors that does not 
flourish wherever a large community exists. The 
reputation of most cities leaves very much to be 
desired, and it is an open question whether their 
excessive growth is not on the whole detrimental to 
humanity. A picture bearing on this issue by Jean 
Beraud was exhibited in the gallery of art during 
the World's Fair of 1893. The painting to which 
I refer represents Christ's descent from the cross. 
The naked body is there as in older compositions, 
and the cross is there, these two objects being his- 
torically faithful. But at this point the unity of 
the work ceases. Everything else is modern : the 

69 



yO MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

scene, the costumes, the very faces of the figures. 
The metropoUs covered with smoke is Paris, not 
Jerusalem ; the hill is Montmarte, not Golgotha ; 
the friends of the dead are French workmen, not 
Jewish peasants ; and he who stands in the fore- 
ground with clenched fist and savage look is a 
chief of the pro/etarmt, and not the centurion. 
Why this departure from the unities — a departure 
that would seem grotesque were it not for the deep 
seriousness of the artist ? I am not sure that I can 
interpret Beraud ; but there came to me, as I con- 
templated his creation, the vague impression that 
he designed to teach the world that humanity, for- 
ever identified with Christ through the incarnation, 
was being crucified by the civilization having its 
chief seat in our cities and that only the laboring 
poor appreciated the awful tragedy continually be- 
ing enacted. 

But notwithstanding the forbidding character of 
the populous marts of industry and commerce, and 
notwithstanding that many persons fail to better 
their condition by going there, every year thou- 
sands of young men and hundreds of young women 
migrate from the country to these great communi- 
ties. It seems useless to tell these wanderers that 
there is no room for them ; that the large centers 
of activity are overcrowded ; that there are scores 
of applicants for every place made vacant ; that 
there are perils on every hand to work their moral 
ruin ; and that the odds against them in every 
respect are terrific. Still they come, and they 
will continue to come. The towns increase in 
population ; the country decreases. Myriads of 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 7 1 

untilled acres cry for the plow and the plowman, 
while the hard pavements groan to be rid of loafer 
and bummer who are only burdens to themselves 
and others. It is in vain that we remind the youth 
who is anxious to abandon hedgerows for narrow 
streets and the breezy mountain air for the smoky 
atmosphere of the metropolis, that there is no 
career more dignified than that of the farmer ; no 
pursuit so full of sweet compensation as that of the 
agriculturist ; and no joys so fair and gracious as 
those which come from the singing of birds and the 
aromatic perfume of flowers. Nothing deterred by 
our depressing representation, our boys and girls 
turn from the country with its delights, perfectly 
willing to attempt life in the city notwithstanding 
its dangers. They come singly and in groups. 
Every train shoots them into Boston, Liverpool, 
London. Sometimes they walk, getting here and 
there a lift by the way. They abandon the home- 
stead, forsake the solitude of prairie and mountain, 
and rush onward, an ever-increasing multitude, 
plunging into the maelstrom from which many will 
emerge disfigured and disgraced and many others 
emerge not at all forever. 

It were as wise as debating with a swollen river 
for rolling furiously to the sea, the sea being 
already full enough, to remonstrate with the 
young on the mischievousness of their impetu- 
ous migration to the city, already sufficiently 
crowded without them. But failing in efforts 
to restrain, we may be able to serve them in 
another way. If we can only give them some 
idea of their own value to the thronged habita- 



^2 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

tions of men which they are ambitious to share, 
and if we can only so warn them against awaiting 
perils, it may come to pass that their migration 
may end otherwise than in disaster. In an en- 
graving now purchaseable for a few dollars there 
is a scene portrayed of tender interest to all who 
sympathize with human hopes and sorrows. The 
picture is named " Breaking Home Ties." A 
mother is parting from her son who is bound to 
try his fortunes in the great world. The look on 
her faded face is one of unutterable solicitude, 
while the boy's countenance betrays something 
of impatience and of forced resignation. He is 
anxious to be gone and is a trifle weaiy of his 
mother's earnest expostulations and wearisome 
homilies ; while she, with a woman's prescience, 
sees the thorns and serpents in his path and can 
hardly ' utter the last farewell. There are other 
parents, who with tear-blinded eyes are bidding 
adieu to sons and daughters, and who wring their 
hands in conscious helplessness as their loved ones 
go out from their village home, never to return 
the same in thought and feeling as they go. They 
may come back better and nobler ; but who can 
tell ? No wonder then that mothers weep, that 
they are torn by solicitude, and that they conjure 
to their excited fancy the city as a terrible and 
frightful octopus. Only those who have lived in 
large communities many years know how well 
grounded are these forebodings ; and all such, if 
they have any manhood left, will do what they 
can to avert their sad fulfillment. It is for this 
reason I presume to pen this Message. 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 73 

Now, at the outset, the fond parents who remain 
in the country and the rustic candidates for a part 
and share in the bustHng activities of some London 
or New York ought to take as impartial and as 
encouraging a view of the situation as possible. 
Mothers and fathers in rural homes ought to 
realize that metropolitan centers have need for 
just such young people as they can send to them ; 
that they can't very well get along without them ; 
and that they may be very much improved by 
their presence and influence. As a rule, our rural 
youth take with them when they migrate many 
desirable qualities. Their habits are usually ex- 
cellent and have served to establish their health. 
The introduction of pure blood from the mountains 
and valleys, like that of pure water from mountain 
streams and lakes, is of the highest moment to 
overcrowded settlements where physical deteriora- 
tion is not uncommon. If this blood shall remain 
uncontaminated by vice, it must tend to reinvigorate 
the population. Moreover, these country boys and 
girls are generally free from affectation and arti- 
ficiality, and are characterized by ingenuousness 
and sincerity. Indeed, the ministrations of their 
native surroundings have gone far toward keeping 
them pure, incorrupt, and trustful. Does not 
Wordsworth write : 



Knowing that nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her ; ' tis her privilege 
Thro' all the years of this our life to lead 
From joy to joy ; for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us, so impress 
With quietness and beauty, and so feed 



74 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men — 
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
The dreary intercourse of daily life 
Shall e' er prevail against us, or disturb 
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
Is full of blessings. 

They who have been reared in intimate fellowship 
with the works of God ought to have imbibed 
something of her sunniness and something of her 
veracious loyalty. As civilization increases, con- 
ventionalities multiply, and may so multiply as to 
create the doubt as to whether anything or any- 
body is real. Breeding and refined manners, de- 
sirable in themselves, are often the cloak of social 
hypocrisies. Observe the difference between the 
town and country when important functions are 
being discharged. On the one side, what gloss 
and glitter, what smiles and simpers ; and on the 
other, what sturdiness and seriousness, what diffi- 
dence and directness ! It must, therefore, be a 
good thing for these gusts of mountain and prairie 
air to sweep through market-place and narrow 
street ; and it cannot but be desirable for the fra- 
grance of honest flowers to be wafted through our 
business marts. Sometimes shopkeepers are non- 
plussed by the ** freshness " of the rural salesman 
as he fails at first to grasp the tortuosities of trade 
and is slow to see why truthfulness should be 
shelved in the interests of commerce. A certain 
class of merchants find it no easy thing to make 
country lads understand the dubious phraseology 
they employ. 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 75 

When some eminent representative of com- 
merce, fresh from the founding of a philanthropy, 
admonishes with much unction of style his youthful 
clerks to be **foxy," and when he suggests to those 
among them who have not been " foxy" to put an 
end to their useless existence, and when he sends 
them out with his latest customer, instructing that 
he be shown the town ; that he be taken to the 
theatre or elsewhere at the expense of the firm, 
and adds with sundry winks, ** Make him as jolly 
as possible, for when he is jolly he will surely buy," 
it must be startling to the novice and cause him to 
stare. But perhaps the stare may not be altogether 
lost on the money Moloch who is thus morally de- 
stroying the sons of better people than himself 
What shall the green hand from the country do 
in such circumstances ? If he ever so mildly pro- 
tests, will he not be ridiculed as being altogether 
too squeamish for business ? The hour is crucial. 
One such novice was horrified at the tricks he was 
expected to resort to in trade and determined to 
apply elsewhere for a position. His employer, 
however refused to furnish him with a recom- 
mendation. What could he do and how succeed 
unless he disposed of his sensitive conscience which, 
in another case, Goethe regarded as a sign of an 
unhealthy character ? A gentleman remarked to 
Talleyrand that there were men in the Upper 
Chamber possessed of a conscience ; to which the 
incorrigible satirist replied : *' Yes, I have known 
many a peer with two." And so there are some 
meagre merchants who demand that the moral 
sense of their clerks should be like their eyes, two 



76 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

in number, and that they should know how to shut 
one tightly in time of need and not see what they 
have no business to see. But this voluntary blind- 
ness does not come easily to one who has just 
parted from parents whose words are still sound- 
ing in his memory, entreating him to live with man 
"as considering that God sees him, and so to speak 
to God as if men heard him." By and by he may, 
unhappily for himself, lose his scrupulous integrity 
and furnish another example of the pure mountain 
breeze being impregnated with the vile odors of 
the sweltering streets. 

It is likewise a very decided gain to cities that 
generally these young people are rich in sacred 
recollections of fair and precious Christian homes. 
They appreciate the words of the poet and as time 
grows old repeat them with deeper pathos in their 
voices : 

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
When fond recollection presents them to view, — 

The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood, 
And every lov' d spot which my infancy knew. 

And among these scenes none will retain its hold 
longer on the imagination and heart than the one 
so exquisitely portrayed by Burns in his ** Cotter's 
Saturday Night." Not alone in Scotland, but here 
in dear New England, the sire with ''patriarchal 
grace" often leads in family devotion and prays 
that thus all may meet in future days, "while cir- 
cling time moves on in an eternal sphere." From 
"scenes like these" our nation's " grandeur springs 
that makes her loved at home, revered abroad," 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 77 

and that makes her sons reverent toward God and 
toward his works, especially reverent toward the 
chief work of his hands shaped in his own image. 
They who enter the busy town, cherishing in 
memory the pious associations of childhood, even 
if they shall stray from their early ideals, will 
rarely, if ever, be found allied with fierce agitators, 
dynamite anarchists, and dreamy socialists. Deadly 
schemes against society are not often hatched in 
quiet villages or on lonely farms, unless indeed, 
the conspirators move there from more populous 
places to avoid suspicion while they plot. The 
green woods, the smiling glen, the fields rich in 
golden grain and edged with fringes of wild 
flowers, are not so conducive to treason against 
existing institutions as narrow, stifling streets, fecu- 
lent gutters, raalarious tenements, and crime-en- 
gendering slums. Social storm centers are not 
formed in rural regions, fragrant with the breath 
of new-mown hay and torn only by the wealth- 
producing plow ; they gather where oppressive 
labor systems crush their victims, and where dirt, 
disease, and debauchery render existence unen- 
durable. But from these dreary localities the low- 
ering tempest threateningly travels on its way, and, 
if the clouds are not checked, will envelop in 
darkness the whole land. It is my opinion that 
the incoming of our country youth has tended 
more than once to avert the destructive outbreak 
of the pent-up elements. Unconsciously to them- 
selves they have imparted to the atmosphere of 
large communities, surcharged with the forces of 
desolation and devastation, something of the 



78 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

serenity that proceeds from loyalty to law, confi- 
dence in God, and in the power of the individual 
to right, in company with his fellows, his own 
wrongs. And if calamity shall be averted and if 
existing problems are peacefully solved, probably 
it will be measurably due to the migration of this 
American spirit from the farm to the workshop, 
from the wayside store to the counting room, and 
from the solitude of vale and hill, where thought is 
born, to the noisy thoroughfare where reckless pas- 
sion is inflamed by greed. 

Our cities suffer more from alien ideas than from 
alien individuals. That the latter form, in some 
instances, the overwhelming majority of the peo- 
ple would be a matter of indifference, were it not 
that their notions and concepts of government, of 
labor, and of social order, are so untranslatably 
foreign to our own. A great deal has been set 
forth of late relative to a protective tariff, and it 
has been argued that it is especially designed to 
shield the American workman from the compe- 
tition of pauperized European toilers ; but if we go 
to the coal fields of Pennsylvania and of Illinois, 
to the woolen mills of Passaic, to the clothing 
sweat shops of Boston and New York, and even 
to the largest establishment where garments are 
manufactured in Philadelphia, we shall find that 
the miners and operatives are mainly European : 
Hungarians, Poles, Portuguese, Italians, and Slavs, 
with an admixture, in New England, of Canadians. 
Most of these immigrants have been aided by per- 
sons interested in their services, or they never 
could have reached these shores ; and we are going 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 79 

through the farce of voting for a tax, avowedly to 
guard American industrial classes from the inade- 
quate wages of the Old World ; and employers 
who extol the eminent soundness of the tax give 
the preference to imported labor, as they can hire 
that proximately at Old World rates ; so that, after 
all, American labor must consent to come down to 
competition on a European basis of remuneration, 
or must quietly retire from the field. 

But this unfair discrimination has its revenges. 
Foreigners bring with them their foreign ideas — 
ideas gathered from nihilists and State socialists 
and atheistic groups — and as they soon discover 
that their earnings here are not equal to the new 
wants created by contact with our civilization, they 
begin to murmur and to threaten, to wave red 
flags, and mutter incoherent things about blood 
and bread. They are not satisfied with their 
masters and do not hesitate to say fiercely that 
there must be a change. Had the native-born 
population waxed indignant at the present state of 
things, it would have occasioned no surprise ; but, 
as a rule, it is so befuddled with partisanism that 
it does not see that it has been thrust aside to 
make way for aliens whose competition has demor- 
alized wages. Our own people philosophically 
make the best of their condition, but " the stranger 
within our gates" is not so peacefully inclined. 
He can't get away from the gory sociology of the 
continent of Europe, and it may come to pass that 
the unpatriotic employer, who is not altogether irre- 
sponsible for his importation, may have to pay 
dearly for his despicable and heartless greed. If 



80 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

he is saved from the bitter fruit of his own evil 
scheming, it will, unless all signs fail, be owing, in 
no small degree, to the influence of young men 
from the country. These rugged children of our 
soil and of our institutions have not been educated 
out of belief in God, or out of belief in the rights 
of property, or out of confidence in what the 
"stars and stripes" symbolize ; and in the hour of 
peril, if such should ever rise, they will give the force 
of their convictions and the weight of their ballots, 
and if needs be, the strength of their arms, to 
repel alien innovations, as the farmers of Concord 
and Lexington villages banded together heroically 
to resist the aggressions of the British. 

It must be encouraging to the class of young 
people addressed in this Message to know that 
multitudes who have preceded them have not only 
contributed to the material prosperity of the com- 
munities where they settled, but have built up 
noble fortunes for themselves. Many, perhaps the 
large majority of eminently successful business 
men, lawyers, physicians, to say nothing of 
preachers, came originally from the country. 
Most of our leaders were " born in huts where 
poor men lie," and toiled over the yellow corn in 
sequestered vales, and dreamed their dream of 
fame or of wealth while slowly fishing up the sum- 
mer stream or drowsily basking in the sun on the 
clover-scented grass. The story has often been 
told of a New York millionaire who grew up in 
some fair Arcadia, setting out with a mouse-trap of 
his own invention, to ensnare not only the confid- 
ing rodents, but the equally guileless and unsus- 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 8 1 

pecting habitues of Wall Street. He died not long 
since, the envied possessor of a good many skins 
of various sorts and sizes, obtained generally by 
squeezing. In Chicago, some of the noble beef 
barons and pig peers and provision princes, as well 
as the manufacturing and money magnates of 
Philadelphia and New York, came of what, in 
Europe, would be termed right good ''peasant'' 
stock ; and I bear them witness that not a few 
among them are liberal to a fault, have heart and 
hand open to the appeals of suffering, and are 
manifesting a public spirit in the development of 
the cities where they dwell, worthy of admiration 
and of imitation. The great Newburj^ Library, 
the Crerer Library, and many practical charities 
providing for hundreds of poor boys and girls, are 
monuments to the breadth of view and the generous 
spirit of the men who have been active in their 
founding. 

And such benefactions as these are only a part 
of what private munificence has done for the 
metropolis of the West, and only a prophecy 
of what, in my judgment, it will do to render that 
metropolis worthy of its destined place in the com- 
mercial development of America. Dear, vener- 
able Boston, also, owes much of its growth and 
affluence and of its moral and intellectual su- 
premacy to brain, and brain nurtured by the pine 
woods and brown rocks of stern and vigorous 
New England. There dwell merchants whom I 
could name, who tramped in the olden times to 
the historic town with all their worldly goods tied 
up in a poor pocket-handkerchief, and whose 

F 



82 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

rights to the soil were measured by the amount of 
dust they had collected on their persons during 
their toilsome journey. They are now old men, 
honored for their devotion to the interests of the 
capital of Maissachusetts and for their enterprise in 
stimulating the march of civilization westward. 
There are few settlements west of Ohio that are 
not indebted to the far-sightedness and the plucky 
energy of Boston business men for their material 
prosperity ; and if we trace the origin of these 
men, in a very large number of instances we shall 
find it somewhere in the forests of Maine, or 
among the mountains of Vermont and New Hamp- 
shire. 

But we must not suppose that the cities I have 
named have the monopoly of such characters. 
They have appeared in all commercial centers, not 
only of America but of Europe ; and Liverpool, 
Edinburgh, London, Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, as 
well as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, have 
their own legends of adventurous, boorish boys, 
of bumpkins fresh from the plow, who have daz- 
zled and startled conservative citizens by the 
triumph of their financial schemes, by the magni- 
tude of their trade, and the prodigal splendor of 
their households and their benefactions. Indeed, 
so striking have been their prosperous careers in 
all parts of the world that the question has arisen, 
relative to the chances of youths who are born in 
the city, Are they usually as successful as their 
brethren from the country? We have not figures 
on the subject and can only guess. Many of them, 
I have no doubt, compare favorably, both in efforts 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 83 

and results, with their "backwoods" rivals; and 
yet I am more than half persuaded that the 
majority of them are outmarched and left behind 
in the struggle for existence. Perhaps it is that 
they conclude existence is not worth a struggle ; 
perhaps it is caused by the enervation of luxurious 
surroundings ; perhaps it is that their fathers so 
exhausted their strength in accumulating property 
that the children were born weary, or with only 
strength sufficient to spend it 

But, leaving invidious comparisons out of mind, 
it is evident that our city boys have no reason to 
sneer at the country boys as ''green," as ** hay- 
seeds," ** tenderfeet," and what-not ; for, in our day, 
intelligence is not confined to the metropolis, but 
is prevalent in hamlet, village, and lonely cottage, 
and they who come from these places to compete 
for the prizes of life are as bright and as well 
informed and are often as acute as those who 
have enjoyed the advantage of large communities. 
The patronizing air affected by our urban young 
gentlemen is altogether out of place. As I have 
observed it, I have frequently been reminded of 
the supercilious and sapient Touchstone, who, 
when William of the Forest approaches, gravely 
says : '' It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. 
By my troth, we that have good wits have much 
to answer for " ; and who, in his conversation with 
Corin, a lovelorn shepherd, remarks, what many a 
modern dude has doubtless felt though for obvious 
reasons has left entirely unconfessed : ** Why, if 
thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good 
manners ; if thou never sawest good manners, then 



84 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

thy manners must be wicked ; and wickedness is 
sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in parlous 
state, shepherd." Well reasoned, most noble fool, 
and as logically conclusive as some other subtle 
processes by which white is demonstrated to be 
black. But logic is not always a safe guide, and 
never is it more unreliable than when it is inferred 
that from certain social conditions inferiority and 
failure must inevitably proceed. There is no such 
inevitable relation. The uneducated poet from 
the plow may win more lasting renown than the 
minstrel carefully reared in the schools and patron- 
ized by the court ; the village politician may rise 
to greater eminence than his metropolitan com- 
petitor; and so the yeoman born, though derided 
as a clodhopper and a lout, not unlikely will 
advance in fame and fortune while the snob and 
jack-a-dandy will with difficulty escape disaster 
and disgrace. 

But while the prospect of the young man from 
the country is not altogether disheartening, and 
while his influence may prove beneficial to the 
city, he ought never to forget the dangers which 
will beset his path in his novel and fascinating sur- 
roundings. Some one has likened a vast metrop- 
olis to that mythical monster whose voracious and 
destructive appetite could only be appeased by 
the offering annually of a certain number of vir- 
gins. It has been stated on good authority' that 
upward of twelve thousand youths and maidens 
fall from their steadfastness yearly in London, some 
of them to be rescued later, but many of them to 
be lost forever ; and I presume these dark sta- 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 85 

tistics are proportionately paralleled in other large 
communities, such as San Francisco and Chicago. 
Schiller writes with tragic vehemence : 

Humanity 
Fierce in the wrath of wretchedness and crime, 
Forth from the city' s blazing ashes breaks, 
And the lost nature it has pined for seeks. 

Open ye walls and let the prisoner free! 

Safe to forsaken fields, back let the wild one flee! 

But alas ! a point in sin and shame is reached 
when humanity can not, will not, flee, but remains 
chafing in its den and watching for the unsuspect- 
ing and the innocent. Degraded men and women 
avenge themselves by degrading others. Nor are 
they merely entrenched in low and squalid quarters, 
nor are they only discoverable at night and on the 
corners of streets ; for they frequently are met in 
reputable neighborhoods, and may belong by birth 
and breeding to worthy families, and, in not a few 
cases, veil their excesses in the obscurity of their 
own dwellings. This is not often appreciated by the 
stranger. He has never imagined a state of society 
where harpies of his own race enjoy a certain degree 
of immunity from law on account of political 
affinities or because of bribes dexterously con- 
veyed to the officials appointed to shield municipal 
honor and virtue ; and where some of the authori- 
ties are leagued with pimps, bawds, blacklegs, and 
the riff-raff of devildom, high and low, in dark 
alleys and broad avenues, for the moral and physi- 
cal ruin of the unwary. 

But that such a condition of things exists, in view 



86 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

of recent exposures in New York and elsewhere, 
few, if any, thoughtful minds can doubt. An 
alderman representing a ward with some preten- 
sions to aristocracy has declared that places of 
infamy exist side by side with respectable homes 
in his neighborhood, into which the over-confiding 
are drawn. Neither did he know how the evil 
could be remedied ; and I am ashamed to record 
the fact that our civic rulers to-day do not, as gener- 
ally as they should, and hardly ever as intelligently 
as they ought, take the side of young people com- 
ing from the country. They seem to be beset with 
a cringing desire to please the dangerous classes of 
society. They will license almost any kind of so- 
called amusement, though it maybe as vicious as that 
given at certain places in London and Paris, unless 
they are restrained by innumerable protests. The 
average city father has a blind eye for such resorts 
as *' dives," ''policy shops," and "saloons." He is 
a great believer, or pretends to be, in '' the manly 
art," and promotes "slugging" by granting licenses 
for boxing ; and his noble bosom heaves beneath 
his well-laundered shirt-front with indignation when 
teachers, clergymen, and women remonstrate against 
lewd posters on the streets, or the unnecessary viola- 
tion of ordinances governing Sabbath observance. 
He is for freedom — freedom for lust, drink, and 
savagery to work their worst ; and those who dare 
raise their voices on behalf of youth exposed to 
temptation, he coarsely brands as canting fanatics. 
It will be the amazement of to-morrow that we 
should have chosen such a type of man to compose 
the city governments of to-day. No wonder, in 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY Sy 

view of his exaltation to power, and in view of the 
usual character of his legislation, that young men 
squander their evenings in degrading follies, reck- 
lessly jigging life away with giggling girls in the 
vitiated atmosphere of the dance-hall. How easy, 
in the circumstances, for them to yield to the fas- 
cinating allurements of brainless women whom they 
have never seen before and whom they may well 
hope never to meet again, and to imbibe deeply of 
the poison draught which distillers and brewers 
have assiduously prepared for their undoing. The 
State itself lives on the w^eaknesses and appetites 
of the people ; the city thrives and waxes splendid 
on the immunities granted to those whose principal 
business is to debauch the young and pauperize 
old and young alike. The community spreads the 
net, baits the trap, and the guileless are ensnared. 
And the shame of it increases when it is realized 
how few of the voters feel any sympathy for the slain, 
or even seem to suspect that a tragedy is being 
enacted. John Ruskin once inquired of his French 
maid what she thought of a certain play. She 
replied : *' It was charming and I amused myself 
immenselyo" "Amused ! but is not the story very 
sad? " "Oh, yes, it is dien triste ; but it is charm- 
ing ; and then how pretty Frou-Frou looks in her 
silk dress." His comment on the speech we may 
well lay to heart: "This is a most true image of 
the way in which fashionable society regards the 
world-suffering, in the midst of which, so long as 
it can amuse itself, all seems to it well. If the ball- 
room is bright and the dresses pretty, what matter 
how much horror is beneath or around?" And 



SS MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

to society not fashionable, and to society mainly 
official, what difference does it make if the young 
are waylaid and bruised in the streets, if money is 
abundant in their coffers and the moral outrages 

The possibilities of peril growing out of such in- 
difference are immeasurably increased by the sense 
of friendlessness and loneliness which naturally 
oppresses the inexperienced stranger in a city. 
He stands by himself Nothing is familiar to him. 
De Quincey pathetically sketches his personal emo- 
tions when, for the first time, he braved the vast 
wilderness called London ; and I can readily recall 
my own feeling of desolation when I, as a lad, 
v/ended my way through its crowded solitudes. 
No face beamed a welcome to me, no voice re- 
vived pleasant memories, and the crowds rushed 
by, careless of my needs or fears. I suppose that 
only the dense, sunless forests of darkest Africa 
can impart an equal consciousness of solitariness 
and despair. Nor is this impression diminished by 
the average boarding house where the aspiring 
Whittingtons perforce must lodge. From experi- 
ence, as well as observation, I know what it is 
like. 

I have often crossed the threshold of these com- 
fortless dwellings which, the more they profess to 
be most like home, are cheerless and uninviting. 
Knock there at the door. It is opened by an un- 
tidy, unkempt girl, who seems to have forsworn 
soap, while an odor of suds and cabbage floats upon 
the air. You enter. The hall is unswept and 
chilly, and leads to dust-begrimed stairs, raggedly 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 89 

covered with faded carpet ; and these end in a room 
where sunHght rarely comes, and where the furni- 
ture is in the last dreary stage of the rickets. All 
parts of the house are in keeping with this cham- 
ber — unattractive, unclean, unwholesome. If, after 
such a vision of seedy respectability, the landlady 
is sought, she will often present herself as a widow 
who has been accustomed to affluence, but whose 
husband inconsiderately died in bankruptcy, and 
who now condescends to have mercy on the suffer- 
ing public by opening this hospitable abode ; or she 
is an angular spinster, arrayed in corkscrew ring- 
lets and multi-colored garments ; or possibly she 
may be one of those buxom, good-natured bodies, 
slipshod and careless, who take life easy and who 
cannot understand how any person can be fastidious. 
In the hands of such mistresses the unfortunate 
boarder must not be over-nice ; for, however sen- 
timental they may be, and however exalted may 
have been their former stations, they are in business 
for the money's sake, and the food they serve will 
not always be above reproach. 

There are even charitable institutions, whose titles 
need not be given here but to whose annual re- 
ports the reader is referred, that appeal to the 
general public for help in providing shop girls and 
others equally defenseless, with their meals at low 
rates, and yet lay by each year a snug sum in the 
way of profit. Such institutions either ought not to 
beg, or they ought to give the girls the full benefit 
of their resources. Of course there are benevolent 
movements of this nature that are not so worldly- 
wise ; and there are boarding houses of a higher 



90 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

grade than the one I have painted ; but so far as the 
latter is concerned, I fear that the uncomfortable 
sort are more numerous than any other, and that 
their total influence is not favorable to religion, or to 
the most elevated conceptions of life and duty. 
Imagine a lad or a girl returning after a hard day's 
work to so cheerless a refuge, compelled to consort 
with fellow-lodgers whose weak wit and cheap crit- 
icism, usually indulged in at the expense of Chris- 
tianity, form their intellectual pabulum ; and fancy 
what an evening must be, spent in a cold hall room, 
without good light or entertaining company ; and 
then answer whether the loneliness of the youthful 
stranger from the country must not, in such circum- 
stances, be next to unendurable ? And shall we 
be surprised if he seeks to escape from it by rush- 
ing out into the night, and if he seeks companion- 
ship even on the streets ? 

John Stuart Mill says : " Nature has been very 
prodigal in mediocrity, and keeps up the supply 
when there is no demand for it." And we must 
remember that the majority who come from the 
rural districts are not exceptionally great ; and 
that one of the weaknesses of commonplace men 
is that they are self-confident and unwilling to con- 
fess that they are not equal to their companions in 
knowledge and experience. They are afraid of 
being laughed at as green, unsophisticated, and 
prudish. The danger therefore is that as soon as 
they come to mingle with city people they will put 
on the airs of one familiar with the world and its 
ways. To prove that they are not amateurs in its 
arts and tricks and that they are as fast as their 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 9 1 

new associates they will probably play with fire, 
with the inevitable consequences. Probably they 
have no real taste for vice, but through their stupid 
vanity and bravado they very readily will become its 
slave, and, when too late, will comprehend that a 
mercantile community does not esteem its clerks 
in proportion to the number of ballet-girls they 
flirt with, the theatres they visit, or the gambling 
hells they frequent Unless, therefore, they are 
reasonably independent, they will fail of success. 
James Nesbit, of London, after he had attained to 
prominence often referred to his first night in the 
metropolis. Led by young companions to a place 
of evil resort, he resolutely drew back, and not all 
their banter or ridicule could overcome his resolu- 
tion. To this honest determination to assert him- 
self he attributed his subsequent prosperity. Amos 
Lawrence, of Boston, likewise illustrates the need 
of decision for the right in starting out on life in a 
city. He too had courage to say "No" on the 
threshold of a grave temptation ; and in his 
'^ Diary " he uses these words : ** Now I say, "to this 
simple fact of starting just right am I indebted, 
with God's blessing on my labors, for my present 
position, as well as that of the numerous connec- 
tions sprung up around me." 

Young people may be disposed to sneer at these 
examples of conservatism and imagine that they 
can follow a different line of action and yet rise to 
fame and fortune ; but if they have a grain of 
common sense, they will perceive that the odds are 
against them, and that men and women with far 
greater advantages, in the way of observation, 



92 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

training, money, and station, than they have had 
have been overcome and ground to powder when 
they have yielded to the seductions of the city. 
The fate of Richard Savage, the poet, may well 
appeal to those who think their country experience 
qualifies them to handle the fire of great communi- 
ties and not be burned. He, at least, ought to 
have been able to cope with evil, if knowledge of 
the evil is the essential thing. His reputed mother, 
the Countess of Macclesfield, abandoned him early 
in life, and his education and habits were alike ir- 
regular. He early saw all that London meant, and, 
if any one, he ought to have known how to escape 
the power of temptation ; but, lax in his principles, 
careless of public opinion, he was captured by a 
wanton, and slew a man in a disreputable house. 
Although the king pardoned him, on the ground 
that the killing was accidental, poor Richard never 
overcame the disgrace. 

And nearer to our own times, the spendthrift 
called the "Jubilee Plunger," though he had wealth 
and as'tute acquaintances to guide him, found that 
he was no match for the metropolis, when once he 
had yielded to its allurements.^ The ;^2 50,000 in- 
herited from his father was soon exhausted on bet- 
ting, horse-racing, and gambling. In his " Memoir," 
he describes how Sir George Chetewynd, of un- 
savory repute, called on him, and learning what 
immense sums had been squandered, advised him to 
gather the rest of his property and throw it out of 
the window ; for by such extravagant scattering his 
friends, at least, might obtain some portion of the 
money. Nevertheless, though men familiar with 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 93 

prodigality and profligacy cannot always resist the 
tide of retribution that sweeps them to ruin, boys 
and girls just in from sylvan retreats and bucolic 
fellowships fancy that, v/ith little effort, they can 
triumphantly breast the stream. 

Probably, also, disappointments will, at the out- 
set, test the courage and virtue of the youth from 
the country. He has left home, expecting to 
secure employment at once. He has few misgiv- 
ings ; and yet weary weeks may elapse before he 
is successful. Advertisements are answered in vain, 
and his applications received by employers with ex- 
asperating indifference and even impertinence. 
Crowds hustle him aside ; individuals who are per- 
petually on the ground before him shoulder them- 
selves to the front and obtain the job he coveted. 
Patiently he goes from store to store, humiliated by 
rebuffs and dimly conscious of something blame- 
worthy in thus seeking work ; but, still wearily and 
cheerlessly, he plods the streets, through rain, 
slush, and mire, his garments wet, his shoes sodden, 
economizing his scant stock of money, and dimin- 
ishing his meals in number and quality until star- 
vation literally stares him in the face. Should re- 
lief come in time, these bitter experiences may 
serve as wholesome discipline ; but should it be de- 
layed, and should it seem to be indefinitely de- 
layed, in his extremity he may jeopardize his soul 
for the support of his body, by accepting a position 
as a bartender, or as a decoy, specially fitted for 
the disgraceful task by his look of innocence, and 
begin to beguile the unwary to unspeakable orgies 
shared by men and women. 



94 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Nor is escape from failure and immediate good 
luck and fortunate adjustment of worldly interests 
without drawbacks and perils. Saul suddenly at- 
tained a crovv'n, and not only was his head wearied 
and burdened by the golden burden, but his mind 
was darkened by suspicion and his conduct was 
disgraced by arbitraiy, unreasonable, and cruel 
eccentricities. Poor Burns, from the lowlands of 
Scotland, all untrained in the wiles of society, 
wreathed as king of verse in Edinburgh, was over- 
come by intoxicating flattery and was too infirm of 
purpose ever to recover from its bewildering ef- 
fects. John Clare, another peasant genius doomed 
to poverty, tasted adulation in London, and was 
unequal to the strain on his nerves and virtue. 
And poets are not necessarily more susceptible to 
the blandishments of success than less ethereal 
characters. An unexpected business position se- 
cured has occasionally led the one who has won the 
prize to treat so extensively and so frequently as to 
end in dissipation and irreparable ruin. Yes, and 
not a few young men, having toiled long and faith- 
fully in very subordinate positions, have wrecked 
their prospects immediately on their promotion, by 
losing their balance and abandoning themselves to 
ease and luxurious living. 

Thus on all sides the boy stranger is beset with 
difficulties and dangers when he undertakes to win 
his daily bread in the new Babylons of modern 
civilization. In his position, he ought to welcome 
the Message I am writing, as it voices both warn- 
ing and encouragement, and should lay to heart the 
further word of admonition I venture with some 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 95 

hesitancy to add. The safest place he will find in 
a city is the church. He has a right to her protec- 
tion, care, and assistance. Let him claim her 
friendship immediately on coming to town. Un- 
fortunately this is generally about the last thing 
young people do. They do not mean to be irre- 
ligious, but they fear their country clothes are not 
fine enough for the sanctuary or that they will be 
taxed to hire a pew or that they will not be suffi- 
ciently noticed. Some of them look out for 
slights ; and as slights can easily be suspected by 
the sensitive, the house of God is forsaken. Not a 
few professors of religion when they change their 
environment, leave behind them their piety. In 
many instances they have to experience losses and 
crosses before they remember their vows and re- 
sume their walk with Christians. Some among 
them affect to believe that city congregations do 
not want them, particularly because, forsooth, they 
are not sufficiently aristocratic ; whereas, were they 
not biased, they might easily know that nearly 
every sanctuary invites them with open doors. 

While I say this, I very well understand how a 
contrary impression may be made ; and I am clear 
that the greatest pains should be taken to convince 
all strangers, especially the young, that their wel- 
fare lies near the heart of the Lord's church on 
earth. Assuredly, they should be made to feel 
that, in the orphaned condition that has come 
through change of location, they are not alone and 
friendless. Parents in cities ought to sympathize 
with parents in the country and give them reason 
to believe that their children shall not be neg- 



96 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

lected, and, of course, shall not be slighted. If 
mothers would only take more interest in the girls 
from farmhouse and village, would recognize them 
socially, and shield them, when needed, as their 
own daughters, multitudes of such girls would seek 
the Lord's altars and would be saved from dangers 
manifold. If fathers were similarly concerned for 
the happiness and protection of the lads who are 
striving to make their way, the stories of disaster 
and wreck would be fewer. Within the memory of 
men now living, employers evinced a personal so- 
licitude for the temporal and spiritual well-being of 
their apprentices. They boarded them in their 
own homes, gave them a seat in their pews, 
watched over their morals and mariners, and did 
all they could to make them worthy citizens as 
well as skillful workmen. This state of things 
went out with the old order to make room for 
the new ; and the new leaves apprentices, clerks, 
and shopmen to take care of themselves as best 
they may, and unless the churches come to their 
succor they must remain without practical guidance 
and generous sympathy. Is it not singular that 
religious people should ever apparently be com- 
pletely absorbed in art, should ever abandon more 
serious pursuits in their admiration for Browning 
and Dante, or should ever be able to derive pleas- 
ure from opera, ball, or theatre, while considerable 
numbers of their juniors are in imminent peril? 
And yet I have heard church-members, and even 
clergymen, boast of their affiliation with literary 
clubs, and glow over bric-a-brac and pictures in 
such a way as to prove that they were far more in- 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 97 

terested in such things than in the deliverance of 
humanity from sin and shame. But these are 
exceptions. And even their seeming apathy is not 
always the result of selfish indifference, but rather 
proceeds from the failure to grasp the real situa- 
tion. They do not see the evils that are devouring 
the weak, and consequently devote themselves to 
their own gratifications and benefit, and, doing so 
in the name of Christ, come to invest their favorite 
pursuits with something of a religious character. 
Many trick themselves into the fond illusion that 
they are seeking the welfare of others when they 
are attending to their own enjoyment, and that, 
like the apostle, they are spending and being 
spent, when, in fact, they are continually lavishing 
on themselves. 

It is of the greatest moment that they who mi- 
grate should evince a teachable disposition. Often- 
times they reveal nothing of the kind. They are 
self-confident, feathery, flighty, shallow, and stub- 
born, not governed by reason, and apparently in- 
disposed to hear reason. Not unlike Sir John Fal- 
staff, they are afflicted with the disease of " not 
listening." Arguments prevail not with them,, and 
as for logic, they are as indifferent to its inexorable 
laws as a cat to the rules of rhetoric. They may 
be refuted by figures and be confuted by facts, 
and yet they hold out, as a stubborn officer 
might refuse to surrender after the enemy had 
captured and spiked all his guns. Entire batteries 
of proofs, long-range guns of knock-down statis- 
tics, and projectiles of enormous penetrating 
power, are met by a twelve-inch iron casemate of 

G 



98 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

solid and stolid obstinacy. Such people rarely 
learn ; and even the rough school of experience 
often fails to change them for the better. Rous- 
seau admitted that the buffeting of fortune had not 
cured him of his visions romanesques ; and Cole- 
ridge has the happy illustration that, to many, " the 
light of experience, like the lights placed in the 
stern of the vessel, illumines only the track that is 
already passed over." If this was the conviction 
of men as brilliant as these writers, we can judge 
how meagre must be the hope that youths who are 
confident that wisdom was born with them and will 
likely die with them, and who acquire by intuition, 
or at least suppose that they do, what others never 
master except by severe application, will ever 
attain the Socratic eminence of knowing what they 
do not know. As Carlyle prays, so pray I : " On 
such may the heavens have mercy ; for the earth 
with her rigorous necessity will have none." 

It is wonderful on how little capital individuals of 
both sexes set up to be Solomons. A solemn shake 
of the head, a knowing look, and a jumble of ar- 
ticulate sounds are sometimes to the party con- 
cerned the indubitable signs of his wonderful intel- 
ligence. And yet the head may shake because, 
like the worthless ear of corn, there may be noth- 
ing in it ; and the speech may stammer and fall 
dumb because it cannot command a satisfactory or 
clear idea. Happy the youth who is not over-con- 
fident, and who leans not unduly on his own 
understanding. There is much to learn of prac- 
tical life, if any considerable results are to be at- 
tained. Ignorance is not at a premium in this 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY 99 

century. He who thinks he knows it all very prob- 
ably has slim acquisitions in mental furniture. He 
who is so infatuated as to refuse the help of sun, 
moon, and stars, because they shine for him and 
not of him and in him, very likely will wind up in 
the ditch. 

In addition it will prove advantageous if the 
young stranger makes up his mind never to dis- 
sever entirely his connection with the rural districts 
from which he came. It is not creditable to forget 
early associations ; and he is alike happy and hon- 
orable who often sings : 

There is no time like the old time, when you and I were 
young ; 

When the buds of April blossomed, and the birds of spring- 
time sung ; 

The garden' s brightest glories by summer' s suns are nursed, 

But, oh, the sweet, sweet violets, the flowers that opened 
first! 

Surely it must quicken the better nature, kindle 
purer desires, and stimulate to renewed endeavor 
when, in the dust and soot of a noisy city, the 
heart pauses and the weary brain finds repose in 
recalling the old farmhouse, the village church, 
and ''sweet Alice with hair so brown." He has 
lost more than he has gained when the home and 
friends of his childhood awaken no music in the 
orchestra of memory. It is also well to return to 
life's starting-point, and there imagine one's self a 
boy again. Only good can come to the tired mer- 
chant who goes back to the fields and streams, 
who wanders among the old familiar scenes, and 



lOO MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

who seeks once more the gnarled tree where he 
carved his own name and that of another. Ah 
me ! no longer does the music of her laugh silence 
the warbling of the envious lark. Sacred ever 
should be the memories of these childish loves. 
These journeys may likewise serve to remind the 
prosperous man of what he owes to district school ; 
to neighbors who, to his youthful mind, were as 
wise as Solomon ; and to the meagre circulating 
library ; and to the learned county politician ; and 
may move him to generous gifts in recognition of 
the days gone by. It is a pleasant sight in many 
New England towns to come across a handsome 
building reared for educational purposes, or for a 
library, or for a church, donated by some prosper- 
ous man in Boston, Chicago, or Minneapolis — 
some man who has not forgotten his quiet village 
home. Though they may not so intend it, these 
benefactions not only commemorate the precious 
influences of home, they remain an enduring 
monument to the reverence of the benefactor for 
times and places that helped to mold him for life's 
great work. 

Nay, I would further suggest that the preserva- 
tion of our love for the country may contribute 
somewhat to our quietness and peace when we 
come to die. Few men care to pass away in a 
crowd, in a thronged theatre, or on a bustling 
stock exchange. Had they their choice they 
would be borne to a wooded hill, to a modest 
cottage on the border of a flowery mead, or to 
the shores of seas stretching toward the unseen, 
where the "God-breathed air" would gently thrill 



MIGRATING TO THE CITY lOI 

them, and heaven's sun delight them with visions 
of a hoHer Hght in which their spirits should rejoice 
forever. But even if the body cannot be conveyed 
to some sweet, sequestered nook, there to wait for 
the pitiable anti-climax, death, which '^ ends all 
earthly dignities," if the soul is in sympathy with 
nature, her fellowship and benediction shall not be 
lacking then. Shakespeare represents gross Jack 
Falstaff, when nearing the end of his strange career, 
as ''playing with flowers" and ''babbling of green 
fields." Even the like of him are sometimes 
carried back to the rural scenes where innocent 
childhood played ; and to the daisies, whose breasts 
of gold and coronals of snow were just as charm- 
ing in the old Plantagenet and Tudor days as now ; 
and to the birds and butterflies once so joyously 
chased ; and to the breeze-swept hills once so glee- 
fully climbed. 

In such cases I fear the invasion of the country 
into the last feverish dreams of earth is only a 
sickening reminder of misspent days, of blighted 
purity, and of withered hopes. But there is no 
necessity for these bitter memories. If the young 
man in the city will only be true to himself and 
true to the sacred traditions of the old homestead 
far away, possibly in some New Hampshire valley 
or in some highland glen, and if he cherishes a 
tender appreciation of their precious associations, 
when worn and aged and ready to die, on the 
borders of the other world, they will fill his soul 
with their smiling beauty and become a prophecy 
and a picture of the brighter fields " all dressed 
in living green " awaiting him beyond the rolling 



102 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

of the Jordan. Then may it come to pass that 
they who watch the final struggles of the poor flesh 
with death may have to relate of him what Brown- 
ing's "Paracelsus" tells of one who 

Died grown old : and just an hour before, 
Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes — 
He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice 
Said that, in spite of thick air and closed doors, 
God told him it was June ; and he knew well. 
Without such telling, harebells grew in June ; 
And all that kings could ever give or take 
Would not be precious as these blooms to him. 



IV 
OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 

Then to side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust. 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ^tis prosperous to be 

just : 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. 

IT is difficult to understand why warfare, with its 
attendant catastrophes and ravages, should 
prevail everywhere — in nature, in society, and in 
human life. The nineteenth century acknowledges 
to the twentieth, soon to be born, that the problem 
is about to be passed on to it, marked '* inexplor- 
able and insoluble." Efforts, mainly praiseworthy, 
have been put forth by optimistic humanitarians to 
induce governments to convert their swords into 
pruning-hooks, and their iron-clad monsters of the 
deep into swift merchant cruisers ; but even suc- 
cess attained in this one department would not se- 
cure the absolute pacification of mankind ; for 
even where there are no guns, no bayonets, nor 
sharp, death-dealing projectiles employed, there are 
desperate competitions and ruthless rivalries that 
inflict pain and know no pity. In sweating-shops ; 
in murderous factories — factories where dust, poi- 
sonous material, or poisonous air prevails ; in mills 
and mines ; in squalid alleys and tumbledown tene- 
ments ; and in narrow thoroughfares like Wall 

103 



I04 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Street or Threadneedle Street ; and in magnificent 
structures devoted to gain, called stock exchanges 
and boards of trade — fiercer and more deadly 
battles are joining than were ever waged between 
savage soldiery or splendid squadrons. What 
scene of valiant strife and sickening bloodshed, 
whether a Waterloo, a Gettysburg, or a Sedan, 
can compare in barbarous cruelty and despairing 
wretchedness with the hourly tragedies enacted in 
the civilized centers of the world ? Well may we 
pause in the midst of the Belshazzar feast of tri- 
umphant progress to read the startling handwriting 
of Tennyson : 

Is it well that while we range with science glorying the 

time, 
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city 

slime ? 
There, among the gloomy alleys, progress halts on palsied 

feet, 
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the 

street ; 
There the master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her 

daily bread, 
There a single, sordid attic holds the living and the dead. 

The earth is but a diffused Armenia, where the 
helpless are being outraged and the victims of 
greed are being tortured ; and Armenia is but a 
picture in epitome of the earth at large. Race and 
tribe antagonisms, expressing themselves in bear- 
baiting ferocities and in lynching brutalities ; capital 
and labor contests, in which, thus far, the latter has 
come off second best, with many a gash and des- 
perate wound ; creed and church conflicts, growing 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE IO5 

into butcheries, from the Black Sea to Mount 
Ararat, and fulfilling themselves in persecutions of 
the Stundists by the orthodox Greek, and in pro- 
scriptions, not unstained with blood, where Roman- 
ism has a free hand in dealing with Protestantism ; 
and class and proletariat struggles, waged on the one 
side from behind the breastworks of monopoly, and 
on the other from the entrenchments of unions — 
make up in some degree the horrible details of the 
field of Armageddon, at the close of our wonderful 
nineteenth century. Usurpations, likewise, add to 
the terrors and agony of the scene. In some parts 
of Europe and South America the theocratic idea 
asserts the right to rule, even though it crushes and 
paralyzes liberty and hope. In Russia the auto- 
cratic power insists on bending all wills to the one 
supreme reigning will ; in England and in Ger- 
many, with some variations, the aristocratic element 
assumes that all other interests are bound to con- 
tribute, at every cost, to its ascendency ; while in 
America, the corporation has come to be lord, 
dictator, tyrant, and nowhere is usurper served 
with such unquestioning, fawning, and abject al- 
legiance as is the corporation in the United States. 
Each one of these imperial and domineering 
sovereigns entails on the land where it prevails 
special and stupendous miseries, and calls forth in- 
subordination and challenge, which, in turn, in- 
crease the gloom and heart-breaking sorrow. 

Perhaps it is not to be doubted that this world's 
passion makes for the world's advancement. But 
why should it be so? Why is it necessaiy for 
Goodness still to maintain its throne through human 



io6 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



agony, and condition the execution of its holiest 
plans in the anguish and groaning of the creature ? 
Could not the Infinite have devised a gentler 
method and one more in harmony with what is 
beautifully attributed to Divine love? Or why 
should not perfection have been accomplished in 
and by the creative act, and not have been left to 
the slow process of struggle and suffering? Are 
these constant recurring pangs of poor humanity 
compatible with belief in the beneficence of God ? 
Or is beneficence itself shut up to the use of means 
which seem to belie its nature by some grim neces- 
sity mightier than itself, and which, thus far, has 
defied discover}^^? We know not ; we have not the 
data to a satisfactory answer. To-day knows no 
more about it than yesterday, and hence can only 
say to the men of to-morrow that the wisest thing 
for them to do is to accept the universe as they 
find it, and adapt themselves to their militant voca- 
tion. Von Moltke, we are told, was silent in seven 
languages ; and like the German general, our 
young people had better hold their tongues and 
address themselves to the main business of life, 
which I take to be nothing other than fighting. 

Do not smile. I am serious ; I mean what I 
say, for from the cradle to the grave we are called 
to be fighters. ''Our enemies are before us," the 
Spartans cried at Thermopylae, and ** We are before 
them," was the heroic reply of Leonidas. Well, 
this is the present position of our youth. They 
confront foes and foes confront them, and they 
must either parley and compromise, run away, or 
fight The latter alternative is assuredly the more 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE ID/ 

dignified and exhilarating. While it would be 
gratifying to know why we are conscripted and 
drafted and forced, so to speak, to take up arms, 
still, cLS we cannot know these mysteries, the best 
thing for us to do is just to put on our armor, study 
the campaign, and go down or up to the battle 
according to the direction in which it lies. The 
imperative command of the Almighty, binding on 
us all, is to '' overcome." This word is repeatedly 
employed and the promise of heaven and of the 
victor's crown is to him that overcometh. The 
language of the camp and field is employed by the 
sacred writers to convey a clear idea of life, its 
scope, aims, and ambitions. We are to conquer 
our own thoughts and bring them into subjection 
to Christ ; we are to war against the foes that lie am- 
bushed in our own bodies ; and we are to cut off the 
right hand and pluck out the right eye, rather than 
by retaining either be excluded from the kingdom 
of heaven. 

Moreover, we are to be good soldiers of Christ 
Jesus, contending for the faith, striving not merely 
against flesh and blood, but against principalities 
and powers and against the prince of darkness ; 
and in addition we are to press forward over 
barricades and bulwarks, invading the cruel realms 
of error, wrong, and servitude, and establishing 
in their stead truth, right, and liberty. Enemies 
are everywhere. They hedge us round about and 
beset us behind and before ; they are entrenched 
within us ; they lurk in our blessings and spring 
at our throats from our friendships ; and there is 
no hour, place, or pursuit in which they do not 



I08 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

find occasion to strike a blow. We cannot evade 
them ; we must not retreat from them ; for only 
as we accept the battle-wage and do our best 
loyally and fearlessly shall we escape disgrace and 
at last be greeted with the "Well done" of the 
conquering Christ. Remember what Dante wrote : 

Not on flowery beds, or under shade 
Of canopy reposing, heaven is won. 

Born to conflict, what a misfortune it must be to 
be too timid to fight ! Can there be anything 
more to be deplored than the faint-heartedness 
which indisposes us to advance and which usually 
predisposes us ever to retreat ? We readily make 
allowances for the moment of hesitancy and the 
labored breathing of courage which have come to 
the bravest on the eve of a fierce engagement. 
The Duke of Wellington admitted that had it not 
been for his sense of duty he would have retired 
ignominiously from his first encounter ; and on 
another occasion he is reported to have commented 
on a soldier who had turned white as he moved 
against a battery : *' That is a brave man ; he knows 
his danger and he faces it." The famous Phil 
Sheridan owned to an irrepressible tremor as he 
prepared to attack the enemy. This is not un- 
natural and is even commendable. There is no 
call for bravo, bluster, and boasting on the approach 
of battle, whether the battle be of one kind or 
another. Thoughtful men cannot fail to feel the 
gravity of the moment that imperils life, fortune, 
honor ; but that is a very different thing from the 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE IO9 

pusillanimity that never resists and the poltroonery 
that never assails. To be devoid of courage is a 
great calamity and never to try and supply the 
need is a grievous shame. Chrysostom was once 
moved to address his congregation at Antioch 
because of symptoms of alarm betrayed at a mo- 
mentous crisis. His people were in church and 
were dreading the coming of the officers of Theo- 
dosius. So excessive were their apprehensions 
that a heathen magistrate came to reassure them. 
Whereon the preacher discoursed : ** I admired 
the solicitude of the magistrate who, when he be- 
held the city troubled and every one contemplat- 
ing flight, came hither and comforted you ; but for 
your sakes I was ashamed that ye should need con- 
solation from a heathen. I wished that the earth 
might open and swallow me when I heard him 
address you, at one moment exhorting you, at 
another censuring your unreasonable and irrational 
terror." All generous and heroic natures must 
share Chrysostom' s contempt of the craven spirit, 
whether exhibited in church or out, particularly as 
it is not always nor necessarily ineradicable. Timid- 
ity may be overcome. Fearfulness and trembling 
may be cured. Allowing that, in some cases, 
the evil is constitutional, still in the much larger 
number it is merely, so to speak, adventitious or 
adscititious. It is a plant without a root and ought 
to be pulled up. It may be due to any one of a 
variety of causes : to extreme diffidence, to self- 
depreciation, to excessive nervousness, or to mis- 
conceptions and misapprehensions of what a man's 
rights and duties are in such an age as this. But 



no MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

whatever may be its origin, no one, especially no 
young man or woman, can afford to tolerate its 
existence. It ought to be dealt with firmly and 
promptly ; and I trust the Message that I bring 
on the subject may further its speedy destruction. 
Let me remind you that society will not accept 
pretense, braggartism, and vaporings, or any sham 
that may be substituted for courage in the stead of 
courage itself. To profess to have what you do 
not possess will not facilitate its acquisition. In- 
deed, if you claim to be very brave and strut about 
as though you were, you may be taken at your 
word ; and then, if you are not what you have pre- 
tended to be, the shock attending the discovery 
will very likely make you more of a coward than 
ever. It is not judicious, if a lad would not invite 
a quarrel, for him to boast of his prowess and 
flourish a revolver. If he courts contention, many 
will be found to accommodate him. It is not even 
expedient to cultivate a fierce mustache, unless the 
wearer is prepared to hold his own against all 
comers. A beard on the chin of adolescence, 
though fluffy and downy, looks very much like a 
challenge and may lead to some uncomplimentary 
complications. The hirsute development on the 
face of juvenility may be taken as the sign of pre- 
cocious heroism and serious and even dangerous 
tasks be imposed on its unhappy possessor. Re- 
member — 



How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false 
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins 
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars ; 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE III 

Who, inward searched, have livers white as milk ! 
And these assume but valor' s excrement, 
To render them redoubted. 

It is a dangerous thing to pretend to manliness 
before you have had time to acquire its virtues ; 
for a man's service will be exacted of you, and a 
man's steadfast endurance in the face of difificulties 
will be demanded. Especially perilous is this 
premature assumption of manhood in the presence 
of vice ; for then habits will be formed under the 
impression that abundance of reserved strength 
must necessarily exist by which their tyranny can 
easily be broken. Thousands, through the indul- 
gence of this vanity, have betrayed themselves to 
ruin. Do not tamper with indulgence now ; do 
not play with fire and trifle with dynamite in the 
days of your youth. Never is it safe to do so — 
never at any age — and it is fatally hazardous in the 
formative period of your life. 

Be careful, likewise, not to vapor, brag, and boast. 
Bravado, bombast, and bluster are deadly weapons, 
and usually wound those who carry them. Don't 
be too sure of your own ability. Do not assume 
to write verses equal to those of Byron, nor to inter- 
pret Shakespeare as brilliantly as Irving, nor to 
guide governments as astutely as Webster or Glad- 
stone, nor to excel in any branch where you have 
not achieved success ; for if you do, some one will 
be cruel enough to put your pretentious talent to 
the test. Do not exaggerate your attainments ; 
do not engage in self-puffery; and do not for a 
moment suppose that brass, effrontery, and insolent 
audacity can long pass current for genius and 



112 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

genuine ability. The sham will be seen through 
in a little while, and then some one will say of you, 
as it was said of others like you in the olden time : 

I know them, yea, 
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple ; 
Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-mong' ring boys. 
That he, and cog, and flout, deprave and slander. 
Go anticly, and show an outward hideousness, 
And speak off half a dozen dangerous words, 
How they might hurt their enemies if they durst ; 
And this is all. 

Better not wear a weapon, my lad, if you have 
not heart to use it. Do not become a member of 
the church, if you are not prepared to defend its 
interests. Why should you expose yourself to de- 
rision ? What a contemptible figure you cut, wav- 
ing a sword in the prayer meeting and then meekly 
sheathing it when confronted by those who ridicule 
you and the Christianity you profess ! Seek not 
the uniform of a national guard if you would 
rather be excused in time of peril from your post 
Decline the positions of editor, statesman, preacher, 
if ever they are within your reach through some 
manipulations of fortune ; for these stations signify 
to society aggression against WTong and chivalrous 
defense of right, and whoever occupies them will, 
in the end, be held to a strict account for their 
neglect or abuse. Let not the coward presume 
to adorn himself with the symbols of courage, nor 
timid doves dare usurp the eagle's eyrie, nor 
shrinking lambs expect to fright the traveler by 
bleating in a tiger's jungle. 

An amusing story was told in the " Richmond 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE II 3 

Dispatch," some years since, of a recruit who was 
being marched to Antietam, and who confessed to 
his sergeant that he had no more spunk than a 
rabbit. The officer admitted that that was bad, 
especially as a battle was impending ; and then the 
young soldier addressed his superior, according to 
the report, and made a most extraordinary request. 
I give it and what followed, in the words of the 
''Dispatch" : 

" ' I want you to do me a great favor.' 

"'Well?' 

" 'Wall, if I kin git mad I'll be all right, and 
forgit my shaking. Keep your eye on me, and as 
soon as we git within five miles of the rebels kick 
me good and stout' 

" After some further talk I promised him. We 
were in Hooker's corps and as we moved in against 
Jackson, Danforth obliqued alongside and said : 

" 'Sergeant, kick me or I shall bolt. I haven't 
got sand enough to see a chicken die.' 

" We were moving through the timber and I 
stepped behind him and ' lifted ' him twice, as hard 
as I could kick. He shot aside and the next time 
I saw him we were at a fence on the edge of a 
cornfield. The fire was hot and the men were fall- 
ing thick. I had just fired from a rest on the top 
rail when Danforth came up, faced the other way 
and said : 

" ' More kicks, sergeant ! I know I've dropped 
two of 'em, but my sand is going.' 

" I kicked him again with a good deal of vigor, 
and just then we got the order to advance and he 
was the first man over the fence. -Half an hour 

H 



114 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

later we were driven back, considerably disorgan- 
ized, and as I reached the fence I came across 
Danforth again. He had a rebel captain by the 
collar and was carrying the officer's sword in his 
hand. As he saw me he called out : 

*''Sand is all right, sergeant. No more kicks. 
As soon as I take this chap to the rear, I'm going 
back and collar old Stonewall himself or die try- 
ing.' " 

While we can excuse this brave poltroon, and 
heartily laugh at the method he adopted to rouse 
and stimulate his heroism, we cannot but condemn 
the men who never speak an independent thought 
nor advocate and defend a noble cause unless they 
are ignominiously compelled to do so by the vigor- 
ous kick of public opinion. Better not go soldier- 
ing, if only kicks can startle your valor, and only 
indignities constrain you to manly effort on behalf 
of outraged right and of suffering worth. The 
Earl of Shaftesbury declared that ** rage can make 
a coward forget himself and fight." But admitting 
this to be true, it is not a desirable inspiration. 
One cannot always work himself into a passion, 
and consequently he may fail to stand his ground 
when most necessaiy. Therefore, if conscious of 
timidity, better not seek refuge in vaunting and 
gasconade, but, without any swagger or sauciness 
in speech or manner, attend to the daily duty and 
meet the daily trial. In this way, the soul may be 
educated out of its shrinking and fearfulness, and 
gradually be nerved quietly to dare, even against 
tremendous odds. 

Doubtless it will likewise further this desirable 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE II 5 

end if pains are taken to ascertain the real strength 
of an adversary and the true character of impend- 
ing dangers. Timidity is always liable to exagger- 
ate, to overcolor, and, trembling before shadows, 
to run away from the presence of conquerable 
foes. Imagination is often fatal to courage. It 
invests an enterprise with hideous faces and sur- 
rounds it with discordant noises, as the old Chinese 
tried to strike terror to the hearts of their enemies 
by the grotesque and ferocious decorations of their 
forts and fleets ; but only a little intelligence and 
common sense is necessary to reveal the pregna- 
bility of these frightful and frightening absurdities. 
Of course, if we insist on fancying every opponent 
invulnerable, and if we persist in asserting that 
there is no joint in his harness open to an arrow 
from our bow, we will naturally make peace with 
him on any terms, and go on confirming ourselves 
in cowardice. Such a mood as this will find 
nothing extraordinary in the apprehensions felt by 
Falstaff in the presence of Hotspur's corpse. 
"Zounds!" exclaims the fat reprobate, '* I am 
afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. 
How, if he should counterfeit too, and rise? By 
my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better 
counterfeit.'' 

It likewise explains the report of the spies who 
were sent to search out the land the Hebrews were 
anxious to possess. On their return from their ex- 
pedition, they reported : " There we saw the giants ; 
and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and 
so we were in their sight" How like this story to 
Falstaff's men in Kendal Green and his men in 



Il6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

buckram seen on Gad's Hill on that memorable 
night when it was as dark as pitch, and a man 
could not see his own hand before him ! Of 
course, what could Joshua's nomadic shepherd sol- 
diery do against these towering Titans ? Surely, 
they did well to be afraid ! And yet, a little cour- 
age and sagacity on the part of Caleb, and these 
herculean foes shriveled in their proportions and 
in prowess came to rank with ordinary human 
beings. According to an English writer, M. Hen- 
rion argued many years ago that the race has 
seriously deteriorated since the creation ; that 
Adam was one hundred and twenty-four feet high 
and Eve only a few inches shorter ; and that when 
the degeneracy began, Noah's growth was arrested 
at twenty-seven feet, and that Abraham stopped at 
twenty, and Moses at thirteen. This theory, how- 
ever, has no basis that I know of in fact. Cuvier's 
attention was called to a twenty-two foot skeleton 
discovered in Sicily, but he showed that the bones 
were those of a mammoth or a mastodon ; and in- 
vestigation of the mummies of Egypt has failed to 
prove that the average size of the race was ever 
larger than at present. There are many persons 
who seem to adopt M. Henrion's science of enlarge- 
ment when they come to think of the enemies that 
threaten them, or the difficulties that lie in their 
paths, only with this difference — their antagonists 
increase and fill the horizon with their mighty 
forms the longer they are contemplated, and do 
not diminish in magnitude as did M. Henrion's 
primitive inhabitants. 

Fear is an extremist It hardly knows how to 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 11/ 

keep within the bounds of sober truth, and to ex- 
tenuate itself usually magnifies the numbers and 
the armament of enemies. At the beginning of 
our Civil War a friend of mine withdrew his capital 
from all investments. He saw only dire calamity 
and commercial ruin coming on our land. His 
alarm was so great that it imagined perils im- 
measurable and unavoidable and he would have 
nothing to do with business enterprises. The curi- 
ous thing about his fright is that it has continued 
to this day and that even now it is as strong as 
it was at the beginning, if not stronger. There 
are difficulties and dangers in every man's path, 
but the unwisest thing he can do is morbidly 
to dwell on them and enlarge them out of all 
reasonable proportions. Better cultivate the for- 
titude and calm that distinguished David when 
he confronted Goliath ; for his intrepidity was 
more than half the victory. Enemies, animate and 
inanimate, shrink from giants to pygmies before 
the face of resolution. Men have conquered igno- 
rance, have conquered poverty, and have conquered 
temptation, simply because they would not believe 
them to be unconquerable. A youthful soldier in 
an English barracks was not to be deterred from 
his duty as a Christian because he had heard that 
his comrades would make it hot for him. He knelt 
by his cot to pray and was assailed by a shower of 
boots and shoes. These attacks were kept up for 
three nights ; but on the fourth, when they were 
about to begin again, a rough voice cried out, 
''Let him alone; he stands fire." And he who 
relates the story adds, ''And we came to think 



Il8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

that perhaps it would not hurt us to have a bit of 

prayer before going to bed." 

The example of this lad may well lead us into 
the wider arena of history for illustrations of the 
duty I am inculcating. When would-be conquer- 
ors, explorers, discoverers, and reformers have not 
frightened themselves by augmenting indefinitely 
the forces opposed to them, they have never, as a 
rule, found them to be invulnerable. It must often 
have occurred to the reflective mind that, if the 
apostles had measured themselves against the world 
lying in Vv'ickedness and against the gods ruling 
over it, they would have been deterred from 
attempting its subjugation. The forebodings of 
fear might easily have added to the hopelessness 
of their mission and have turned them from their 
purpose. But they did not abandon themselves 
to gloomy fancies ; they possibly did not appre- 
ciate the gigantic task they had undertaken, and 
they therefore simply went forward. And as they 
moved, though prisons, scourges, and all kinds of 
tortures had to be endured, it was soon made mani- 
fest that a company of earnest souls centered in 
truth and righteousness could not be stayed by all 
the powers of darkness. It is wonderful how weak 
an evil proves if it is only firmly and steadfastly 
faced. The real armor wherein it is incased is 
forged in our own heated imagination and is 
riveted by our timidity ; touch its defenses and 
they are gone. 

How clearly may this truth be read in the lines 
of famous heroic leaders ! The waves of an At- 
lantic part before the prow of the adventurous 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE II9 

"Santa Maria." Three thousand miles of water 
barred the way of Columbus ; unknown conditions, 
fraught with gravest risks, were before him ; and 
the chances of success were apparently so small 
as to be hardly calculable ; and yet when he 
was irrevocably committed to his task, obstacles 
yielded and the hindrances were slowly but surely 
mastered. He believed it possible to make head- 
way and he started ; and as he dared to begin, the 
impediments, formidable though they were, were 
unable to check his progress. Luther, Galileo, 
Bruno, and others of the sixteenth century period, 
who arrayed themselves against wastes of ignorance 
and superstition more interminable than the leagues 
of ocean separating Europe from America, and 
who had to endure the malignant and merciless 
passion of foes more unrelenting and deadly in its 
fury than all the storms born of air and sea, could 
not be convinced, even by diets and inquisitions, 
that their mission was chimerical and unavailing. 
They did not pause nicely to compute the strength 
of their adversaries. Convinced that wrong is 
always vanquishable, they had the temerity to 
speak and act on that conviction ; and from their 
stalwart intrepidity sprang a new civilization, as 
from the unflinching determination of Columbus 
there arose a new continent. 

Perhaps nowhere else are we taught this lesson 
more vividly and with such variety of example as 
in Westminster Abbey. Whether we stand by the 
tomb of Shaftesbury, and recall his brave champion- 
ship of the cause of English childhood, which was 
being crushed in mines and factories, and note how 



120 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

he delivered it from the cruel grip of greed and 
heartlessness ; or by the monument to General Gor- 
don, who never was deterred by difficulties from the 
performance of duty, and who never took counsel 
of his fears, either as a soldier or a Christian ; or 
whether we look down on the old gray stone with 
its brief Latin inscription and think of Newton, 
undismayed as he plucked secrets from Nature's 
bosom and stormed the very heavens in search of 
knowledge ; or whether we meditate on the memo- 
rials to Sir James Outram, "The Bayard of India," 
to Lord Lawrence and to David Livingstone — 
selecting only a few from a multitude of heroes — 
and rehearse the story of their lives, and listen to 
the last words of Sir Henry Havelock, who in spirit 
spoke for them all, " I have for forty years so ruled 
my life that when death came I might face it with- 
out fear," we will solemnly be impressed by the 
truth that no difficulties and no dangers surpass 
man's power to subdue. Attack them and sooner 
or later they will yield. 

That faith removes mountains is an axiom of 
history as well as of piety and its witnesses occur 
at eveiy stage of human progress. How unreason- 
able then is timidity ! It has no excuse for itself 
in fact. The bogies and phantoms it conjures up 
have no staying and fighting qualities in them and 
the obstructions that are real will no more with- 
stand a persistent assault than the loosely con- 
structed barricades of Paris could endure a serious 
cannonade. Compose yourselves, therefore, my 
young friends, and consider calmly the commis- 
sion given you by God to overcome ; and observe 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 121 

in the actual conflict how the things to be over- 
come have not proven so incapable of defeat as 
some persons supposed and that you may, with- 
out grievous apprehension, cope with them at once. 
Do not say that you will wait until you are older. 
The best days for fighting are the days of your 
youth. Alexander conquered the known world 
before he was thirty-three ; Lafayette was com- 
mander of the French army at twenty-two ; Wash- 
ington was an adjutant-general at nineteen ; 
Charles XII. of Sweden at nineteen gained the 
battle of Narva ; Napoleon defeated the most 
sagacious of his opponents at twenty-seven ; Glad- 
stone was Lord of the Treasury at twenty-four ; 
and the men who inspired the Reformation — 
Luther, Erasmus, Melancthon, and the rest — were 
young ; and the leaders of our own Civil War — 
the Grants, the Shermans, the Logans, and Gar- 
fields — were far from being old. Everything is 
possible to courageous youth. But refuse to act, 
hoping that age will quell your fears and continue 
to exaggerate the prowess of the foe and you will 
awake some day to the stern reality that you have 
fallen into the coward's incapacity and shame. 

It should also be realized that shrinking from 
the battle never saves from its shock and strife. 
Though we may recoil from fighting others, others 
will not hesitate to fight us. Escape is impossible. 
We had better, therefore, as we are destined to a 
soldier's lot, choose to play a soldier's part, espe- 
cially as the crown and reward we may win by 
bravery will be lost by timidity. If we are willing 
that others should take our places in the conflict, 



122 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

it is they and not we who will come off conquerors 
and with a conqueror's honor. There is something 
humiliating in submitting to be driven before the 
foe and in consenting to be progged by bayonet 
and clubbed by musket, even in a metaphorical 
sense, when firm resistance and earnest aggressive- 
ness involve no more agony and result in abun- 
dant blessings. You cannot run away and win the 
medal too. If you do not overcome, you will be 
overcome ; and you will suffer as much in being 
trampled upon as in trampling on. Seneca said to 
Lucilius : " Vivere, mei Lzicili, militare esf (To 
live, my Lucilius, is to fight). But that depends 
upon whether it is courted or dreaded. There 
can be no satisfaction to the craven in the thought 
that he is continually being pursued and in the 
end must perish in spiritual bankruptcy. Such 
fighting is not life ; it is death. If anything should 
cure timidity, it is the certainty that if we give way 
to others, hide behind others, and hand over our 
battles to them, they and not we will gain the 
laurel and the palm. 

Mr. Chauncey M. Depew has given the public an 
interesting bit of personal history. He says that 
when he graduated from college his father informed 
him that he must buckle down to hard work and 
earn his own living like other young men who have 
no wealthy parents to sustain them. This decision 
was not relished by the Yale graduate at first and 
he was very far from being grateful. He thought 
the course pursued toward him unduly and un- 
necessarily severe ; but now he admits it was the 
making of him and that if he had been indulged 



. OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 1 23 

in idleness he might have become as worthless as 
others similarly situated. He had to fight his own 
battles, and few will deny that they have developed 
in him self-reliance, aggressiveness, and leadership. 
I have often asked myself of late whether reformers 
and religious people are not encouraging multi- 
tudes of dissipated vagabonds to put the blame of 
their misconduct on the better-behaved portions 
of society. These philanthropists lay much stress 
on environments and attribute to them the larger 
part of the iniquity and misery that exist, and hold 
the community as a whole so responsible for their 
continuance that the vicious classes feel themselves 
quite exonerated from guilt and carry themselves 
not as villains but as victims. They expect that 
we will fight their battles for them, that we will 
crush all their enemies, and let them have the spoil. 
The same maudlin sentimentality that tends to 
convert ruffians into innocent infants in their own 
esteem, to be defended and provided for, is begin- 
ning to make itself felt in some theories of govern- 
ment, and if we are not careful we shall succeed in 
producing a helpless population, incapable of self- 
support and of generous heroism. Now, while I 
believe we should **lend a helping hand" in life's 
fierce conflict, and succor and sustain each other 
in the hour of need, and aim to make the conditions 
of victorious combat as easy as possible, I hold that 
it is God's will and for man's highest good that 
every soul fight its own battles. 

Only in this way do men come to esteem achieve- 
ment more highly than ease. If they have been 
so educated as to expect everything to be done 



124 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

for them, they will lack heart and enterprise to do 
anything for themselves ; but if they have been 
thrown on their own resources and have tasted of 
the joy there is in bringing something to pass, they 
will prefer struggle and effort to uneventful and 
unfruitful repose. Unquestionably, Thomas Car- 
lyle must have winced, when in 185 1 his now 
famous ''Sartor Resartus " was contemptuously 
declined by London publishers ; nor could it have 
been otherwise than depressing when the editor of 
"Eraser's Magazine," after printing a few portions 
of the unfortunate book, informed him that it had 
been everywhere received with " unqualified disap- 
probation." It is not surprising that he nearly lost 
heart and seriously considered the wisdom of emi- 
grating to the colonies. But this interval of storm, 
stress, and strain was not lost, and after a while a 
solid victory was won. Carlyle in this bitter trial 
grew stronger, more determined, and when the 
reward came at last, the entire experience — the 
conflict as well as the crown — stimulated him 
to fresh undertakings. How different it would 
have been if he had been under no necessity to 
toil, or if he had won renown without trying, or 
rather if he had been lauded without having de- 
served applause. He would have been forever 
incompetent and in every sense a genius uncon- 
scious of his own power. 

Fight your own battles, my young friends. You 
can only evolve your true self, your higher self, 
through the struggle to defend yourself and to 
raise yourself above all obstacles and difficulties ; 
and when you are inured to struggle, you will 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 125 

delight in it ; so that even in your declining years 
you will desire to achieve, to die in the harness, to 
take the field as old King David did near the close 
of his long and tempestuous career. It is said that 
Isaac Walton had lived some ninety years when he 
wrote his immortal book ; that Benjamin Franklin 
was eighty when he applied himself seriously to 
philosophical studies ; and that Christopher Wren's 
and Fontenelle's usefulness took new and vigorous 
shape when the snows of winter lay thick upon their 
beards. These men, as the Bible has it, bore fruit 
even in old age ; but fruit would there have been 
none, had not storms, the buffeting winds, and the 
pitiless hail, compelled them to strike their roots 
down in the soil and accustomed them to strive for 
excellence. Fight your own battles then, for only 
in this way can you ever have victories of your own, 
and only in this way can you become capable of 
winning fresh and more valuable victories. 

Moreover, it is by this process that men come 
to show that they exalt principle over policy. 
Marcus Aurelius has the wise saying: *'The waves 
may seethe with mud, but be thou as the promon- 
tory on which they break." That is, firmness and 
steadfastness are indispensable to the highest type 
of character; but these are never attained when 
fears hold sway. The fearful soul is ever anxious 
to conserve the good opinion of society, never 
to offend, and never to incur public disapproval. 
Timidity is the mother of falsehood and of faith- 
lessness ; it tends to enervate conscience, and fall- 
ing into blunders seeks a refuge in mendaciousness. 
It betrays friendships, right, and justice, rather than 



126 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

to encounter the opposition and the perils which 
loyalty oftentimes stimulates into activity. Timid- 
ity always seeks to know the side on which its bread 
is buttered. It is always weatherwise, scans the hori- 
zon, and counts perpetually the signs of the times ; 
and boasts — boasts of its prudence, its sagacity, 
and farsightedness. But in a multitude of cases 
cowardly policy overreaches itself 

A gentleman inquired of another as to the value 
of a certain piece of property. The answer given 
was : '* I know not its present worth ; but I know 
what it cost its owner." " Indeed ; well, what? " 
"His soul," was the startling reply. Very likely 
the man who secured the estate had lied and 
cheated and had counted himself smart in getting 
ahead of some one else. He had thrown principle 
to the wind, preferring the crooked ways of policy, 
and had sacrificed his better self in the barter. 
Need I point out the criminality and foolishness of 
such a course ? Surely every one must perceive 
that this business cunning is a curse and a snare. 
Wiser far not to accumulate so rapidly and retain 
some degree of manhood to enjoy what has been 
honestly acquired. A capitalist wrote from the 
continent of Europe to a young merchant in Eng- 
land proposing a very questionable transaction and 
received the following reply : "I do not attend to 
business in that way." Some two years elapsed 
when the Englishman received from his former 
correspondent the request that he take his son in 
his office as a clerk, adding significantly, " I desire 
my son to learn how to do business in your way." 
In this instance adherence to principle paid ; for 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 127 

what comparison could there be between the pos- 
sible profits that might have accrued to deceitful 
trading and the homage paid by the father's trust 
to the incorruptible honesty of the British mer- 
chant? But pay or not pay, the boy who goes 
forth courageous to fight wrong and to battle 
for the right will soon become as Wordsworth's 
'* Happy Warrior," who — 

Would not stoop, nor lie in wait 
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state : 
Whom these must follow, on whose head must fall. 
Like showers of manna, if they come at all. 

Heroes of principle are the demand of the hour 
— men who believe something and who will not 
swerve from what they believe, and who are not 
time-servers, weathercocks, fickle, and variable ; 
these are the characters most necessary to-day to 
the stability and progress of society. But these 
characters are never produced in those youths who 
retire from the field before a shot is fired, and who 
never see anything worth fighting for, and who 
expect to be rescued by others from any incon- 
venience, and who would rather sell out the entire 
army than suffer annoyance or disability. God 
help them to a nobler view of life ! God extricate 
them from their despicable cowardice ! and God 
help them to sing : 

Perish policy and cunning ! 

Perish all that fears the light ! 
Whether losing, whether winning, 

Trust in God and do the right ! 



128 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Some will hate thee, some will love thee ; 

Some will flatter, some will slight ; 
Cease from man and look above thee ; 

Trust in God and do the right 

Fight your own battles, my young friends ; for 
only in this way will you rise to the grand convic- 
tion that honor is to be preferred to life. The 
craven-hearted never understand this. Their timid- 
ity causes them to shrink from exposure to pain 
and to them the most sacred of all duties is to take 
care of their precious persons. If they run behind 
their mother's aprons whenever there is danger, or 
whenever it is imagined, and if they put their big 
brothers perpetually between themselves and as- 
sailants, they will probably not be too nice on the 
subject of integrity in future years. 

The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said 
that the battle of Waterloo was decided in the 
schools and playgrounds of Eton and Marlborough, 
where manly discipline formed the boys into self- 
reliant, stalwart, and courageous men. Undoubt- 
edly there is a close connection between early 
training and subsequent endeavor. Do your own 
fighting then, and you will not be afraid of suf- 
fering ; and blows and knocks of one kind and 
another will lead you to heed them but little and 
to court them rather than to incur disgrace. Had 
it not been for this kind of drilling we should not 
have the inspiration of the epitaph on the heroes 
of Thermopylae : 

Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, 
That here obedient to their laws we lie. 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 1 29 

Nor should we have the example of the unnamed 
soldier who perished at his post when sulphurous 
fires burst over Pompeii ; nor that of the Light 
Brigade, that rode at Balaklava into the Valley of 
Death, for — 

Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die. 

And but for this schooling in independent action 
and in boldness of thought and purpose, Benedict 
would never have left everything for the Sabine 
Hills that he might fit himself to rouse the people 
of his times ; neither would young Telemachus, in 
the reign of Honorius, have ventured into the am- 
phitheatre after the gladiators had cried, ''Ave 
CcBsar, morituri te salutamus,'' to forbid the brutal 
combat and lose his own life in his humane en- 
deavor ; and neither would the pilot on the lakes, 
when his steamboat was ablaze, have remained 
faithful at his post, and have guided the vessel with 
his charred hands to the shore, dying as the keel 
grated on the sandy beach ; nor would that name- 
less youth have riddeti down the Conemaugh Val- 
ley on the night of the Johnstown disaster, while 
the maddened floods rolled after him, ultimately 
engulfing him, but not the story of his loyalty to 
honor. Again I say to you, young men, fight your 
own battles and tell your friends to keep hands off; 
for in that way and in none other can you ever 
obtain a crown. 

While the necessity for courage has existed in 
the past, it is not to be supposed that advancing 

I 



130 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

civilization has rendered it superfluous in the pres- 
ent. The fixed law of existence, as I have already 
pointed out, appears to be conflict ; and never has 
that law been more in evidence than at this period 
of history. If timidity has always been fatal to dig- 
nity and success, it can now only lead to discom- 
fiture and disgrace. Perhaps if other motives fail, 
this consideration may have some weight. Look 
around you ; see the society in which you live ; 
meditate on the agitations of the day growing into 
revolution on the morrow, and it will be painfully 
evident to you that the timid soul cannot bear itself 
honorably in such a crisis. With the ghastly con- 
vulsions of thought and the sickening vileness of 
conduct which are continually distracting the com- 
munity, it hardly seems as though we had pro- 
gressed far, socially or morally. One has only to 
recall the definite and disagreeable details laid be- 
fore him in the newspaper to be thoroughly per- 
suaded that mighty changes are impending. There 
seems to be no view of truth too distorted, no wild 
speculation too absurd, no vagaries too grotesque, 
for them to command adherents. Useless is it to 
urge that these arid wastes have been traversed 
before and have been shown to contain no vital 
germs ; for the rich, powerful, and cultured, as well 
as the so-called vulgar, are weary of the old founda- 
tions and are determined on building society anew 
from the base. 

Prophets are grimly pointing out that the pres- 
ent century cannot close without unheard-of cata- 
clysms, such as labor strikes on so immense a scale 
as to bankrupt trade, or wars on so vast a footing 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE I3I 

as to overthrow governments and extirpate races. 
On all sides are evidences that the old order is per- 
ishing to give place to the new, and that the new 
cannot be established without strenuous exertion 
and fierce contention. But conservatism dies hard. 
It closes its eyes to the movements of the hour, 
and will ''not be persuaded though one rose from 
the dead " ; and insists, because it has made no ad- 
vance itself, that human thought stands still. But 
in a little while it must look radicalism squarely in 
the face and dispute the ground in open and un- 
flinching fight. In theology, as elsewhere, this con- 
flict is imminent. Indeed, there is a lurking sus- 
picion that as goes theology so will society be 
fashioned. If the extreme school of rationalistic 
criticism prevails, society, more logical than some 
biblical professors, will not take the supernatural 
into consideration as it shapes itself, and will try to 
get on without prayer, churches, or an inspired 
revelation. 

And yet they who oppose this school must not 
be blind to the fact that various statements of doc- 
trine and theories of inspiration and redemption 
have become utterly antiquated and unbelievable. 
The world will not consent to go on indefinitely 
reaffirming definitions and Confessions which, in 
terminology, are far below its intelligence and con- 
trary to its conscience. Revision is inevitable if 
the twentieth century is to be held to the cross and 
crown of our Lord. Not unnaturally, some clergy- 
men avoid the issue. They hold to an esoteric 
Christianity and hesitate to make it exoteric. Repu- 
tation for orthodoxy, whether in religion, politics, 



132 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

or sociology, is part of one's stock in trade, neces- 
sary, as we suppose, to usefulness, and not there- 
fore to be surrendered lightly. Consequently, 
some ministers, who see that the old style of things 
cannot continue to prevail, and who conscientiously 
oppose the radical critics, hesitate to disclose their 
own solution of the problems involved. Why 
should they risk being branded as heretics ? Why 
should they consent to the most ignoble of martyr- 
doms — loss of ministerial standing? And some 
among them go on re-echoing, with various mental 
reservations, what they suppose in the present state 
of knowledge must be indispensable to the world's 
welfare, though they must admit that their own 
partially changed belief has not produced any very 
disastrous results in themselves. All this is at once 
interesting and instructive ; but however blind con- 
servatism may be, or may pretend to be to the fact, 
we are now in a revolution of no meagre propor- 
tions, and one that embraces more than theology, 
that comprehends the forms of government and 
the methods of industrialism as well. If the in- 
vention of gunpowder and the printing press, with 
the revival of learning, could have led to the up- 
heaval that marked the sixteenth century, surely 
the invention of dynamite, the extension of popu- 
lar education, the application of steam and elec- 
tricity to the uses of civilization, the growth of 
learning, and the gracious enlargement of the 
Christian spirit, must portend an equally wonderful 
transformation and reorganization of society in the 
twentieth century. 

Youth of to-day, that century will be yours to- 



OVERCOMING TIMIDITY IN BATTLE 1 33 

morrow. In a few more years its light, that shall 
fall on our graves, will shine on your upward and 
onward path. But if you would be equal to its 
opportunities and rewards, get rid of your timidity 
now. Arm yourselves with courage and strike 
down the evils and foes that are ambushed in your 
own souls. Spare not yourselves. See that trea- 
son lurks not in the citadel. Then array your re- 
sources, the strength of your intellect, the vigor of 
your will, and the unfaltering loyalty of an honest 
purpose against corruption, superstition, and the 
debauching of the public intellect. Whatever may 
be the cost, whatever of immediate sacrifice or of 
suffering, do your duty, confident that God will 
defend the right. 

Reckless of danger, loss, and shame, 
In the free, fearless faith of youth. 

Forward through good and evil fame 
To battle in the cause of truth. 

Go, hope to bear, through toil and pain, 

Her standard on to victory. 
And from the very strife to gain 

Strength to dispense with sympathy. 

Truth must prevail. Meanwhile endure. 

Of worldly peace let worldlings boast 
Amid the storms of life, be sure 

The loftiest spirits suffer most 



V 

OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 

And much I blame the present fashions too. 
Which now in Greece prevail ; where many a feast 
Is made to pay great honor to such men, 
And to show false respect to vain amusements. 
For though a man may zvrestle well, or run. 
Or throw a quoit, or strike a heavy blow. 
Still, where'' s the good his country can expect 
From all his victo7'ies, and crowns, and prizes ? 
Will they fight with their country"" s ene^nies 
With quoit in hand ? Or will their speed assist 
To 77iake the hostile bands retreat before them ? 
When vien stand face to face with th"" hostile sword. 
They think no more of all these foole^-ies. 

DURING the present year (1896), the eyes of 
the world have been turned toward Athens, 
where the revival of the Olympic games has im- 
parted a fresh interest to the subject of athletics. 
The real value of manly pastimes, involving trials 
of skill and strength, has received considerable at- 
tention of late. College presidents, humanitarians, 
and moralists have been shocked by the dangerous 
violence exhibited by undergraduates when play- 
ing football ; and magistrates have viewed with 
apprehension the favor shown to sparring matches 
in communities of the highest intelligence ; and 
thoughtful citizens have been wondering why even 
yachting cannot be enjoyed without involving the 
most honored names in scandalous suspicions. 
134 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS I35 

Much has been written and more has been 
spoken on these and kindred topics ; and what 
with the wretched fiasco at Henley-on-Thames 
in 1895, and the desperate strategy of the Fitz- 
simmons and Maher prize-fighting combination in 
1896, the question has arisen whether the plea for 
physical culture has not been greatly overdone. 
And now, in the midst of our dubitation, comes 
the gathering of crowds on the banks of the Ilis- 
sus as they formerly gathered in the valley of 
Alpheus, and we are reminded of the echoing of 
shouts from Mount Chronion and the Messenian 
Hills as we read the reports of valiant contests tak- 
ing place in the rehabilitated stadium of Athens. 
The violet-crowned city of the western Pelopon- 
nesus has been made glad by the arrival of pil- 
grims to witness the games, not only as in the olden 
time from the Propontis and the Black Sea, and 
from the coast of Asia Minor, and from the 
colonies in Sicily, Gaul, and Spain, but from Eng- 
land, Australia, and America. 

And now, not only tribes and branches of the 
same race strive for the masteiy, but peoples of 
different lineage and culture come into friendly 
rivalry. Important changes are observable in the 
restored festivities of Olympia. The bicycle seems 
to have taken the place of the ancient Hoplito- 
dromos, or warriors' race, and a more humane 
and refined spirit prevails, as is seen in the banish- 
ment of the brutal pancratium and in the absence 
of nudity on the part of the contestants. Were 
Lycurgus of Sparta and Cleosthenes of Pisa to 
return from the dead and witness what has been 



136 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

going on in Athens, they probably would discern 
only a very faint resemblance between the ath- 
letic exhibitions of their day and ours ; but at 
least they could not fail to detect a similarity in 
skill, courage, and enthusiasm. Most likely, also, 
they would remind us that our intense love for 
manly exercises has been evolved from these early 
Greek spectacles in which foot-races, chariot races, 
wrestling, and the pentathlon fired with delight the 
hearts of multitudes. Of course, no "ghosts need 
come from the grave to tell us this" ; but it is well 
for us to realize it just the same. The attempt to 
resuscitate Olympia not only revives the memories 
of what Coroebus, INIilo of Croton, Theagenes of 
Thasos, and many others achieved, but recalls the 
historic fact that its festival was suppressed by 
Theodosius, 394 a. d. Why? Why should a good 
thing have been abolished ? Had it ceased to be 
good ? The answer may come to us in the devel- 
opment of this chapter ; and the restored Olympic 
sports may suggest a warning which should not 
pass unheeded, even while we may be admiring 
their manifold fascinations. 

Athletics have, naturally, many charms for the 
young. It has been so through uncounted ages 
and will continue so until the end, unless, before 
the end comes, hopeless debilitation is engendered 
by luxury and effeminacy. To run ; to leap ; to 
row ; to strive and wrestle ; to toss a ball ; to ride 
a horse across a breezy common ; to climb a 
rugged hill and, breathless, reach the dizzy height ; 
to fence with foil, or pierce the bull's-eye with an 
arrow; to tramp over moors and fields, gunning 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 1 3/ 

for bird or deer ; and to follow the river bank, rod 
in hand, searching for the gleaming prey — these 
and other harmless pursuits have an attraction for 
those on whom the cares of life rest lightly. The 
exhilaration of the mountain air; the solemn joy- 
ousness of the early morning hours ; the veiy ele- 
ment of danger; the self-imposed labor and 
fatigue ; and, withal, the sense of generous rivalry, 
add to the delights of manly sports. These vig- 
orous and jocund pastimes bring youth very close 
to Mother Nature, to her sweet and wholesome 
breath, to her soft and gentle bosom, to her fair 
and radiant face, and to her heart of innocence and 
kindness. And we need not be surprised that the 
child should love to be near its mother, and neither 
should we fear for the outcome of their close and 
pleasant fellowship. It will be a sad day for our 
land, should it ever come, when our young people 
take no interest in physical diversions suitable to 
their age and condition ; when their piety is of the 
sort that sees wickedness in golf and monstrous 
iniquity in a gay, white-winged regatta ; and when 
their tastes are of the kind that prefer gambling 
and carousing to baseball and to boating. Then, 
indeed, would the unhappy era be reached of 
mingled hypocrisy and sensuality, whose heroes 
would either be of the Pecksnififian and Chadband 
type, or of the character of Heliogabalus and Lu- 
cuUus. 

Young man, are you sanely, and not insanely, 
fond of athletic recreations and enjoyments ? If 
you are, I congratulate you. It is a good sign, a 
sign of hardy strength and of bodily soundness. I 



138 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

have more hope of you than I would have were 
you too feeble to expose yourself to the open air, 
and too timid to shoulder a gun, and too appre- 
hensive to court rosy health, skimming on skates 
over the surface of the frozen lake. But, my dear 
fellow, do not, I pray you, be too fond of such de- 
lightful diversions. Unfortunately we tend to ex- 
tremes in ever\'thing-, and the earth is not so full of 
evil things as it is of good things made evil by 
abuse. The failure to comprehend the law of pro- 
portion and of equilibrium in engagements not in- 
herently immoral has done more to confuse the 
conscience, foster asceticism, and per\'ert blameless 
amusements into positive curses than almost every 
other blunder committed by humanit}- in practical 
ethics. Be careful I Remember that Ovid has 
sung of the sad fate of Actaeon, who was so 
devoted to the chase that he was abroad when he 
should have been at home and comfortably in bed, 
and saw what resulted in his being changed into a 
stag — a transformation that exposed him to death 
at the fangs of his own hounds. Adonis was 
equally infatuated and equally unfortunate. Even 
the Goddess of Love could not prevail on him to 
relax his pursuit of the wild boar, and in the end, 
he was torn and slain bv the infuriated beast 
Learn a lesson from these classical mvths, and 
place bounds to innocent indulgence. To run 
after a ball is well enough, if you do not let the 
ball run away with you ; to engage in a "rush" at 
college 'is certainly not bad, if you do not permit 
the game to "rush" you away from the serious 
affairs of life ; and to back a spirited horse is in no 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 1 39 

sense wrong, unless you recklessly ride it to the 
sulphurous and bituminous goal, where, according 
to the proverb, the beggar equestrian evermore 
draws rein. This liability to excess, and the liabil- 
ity of even other serious mistakes, warrants, I am 
persuaded, a Message to the youth who is fond of 
athletic sports. 

I desire you to realize at the outset that they 
have usually been highly esteemed by civilized 
nations. The Greeks were renowned for their in- 
terest in physical culture. They attributed its 
origin to the gods, and dedicated its honors to the 
Olympian Zeus. It was claimed that this deity 
established the famous games to perpetuate the 
memory of his own battle with Chronos for the 
crown of authority in heaven. Others maintained 
an equally mythical beginning, but one which 
called into play the heroism of Atreus, the strength 
of Hercules, or the swiftness of Apollo, who out- 
ran both Hermes and Ares. So vital to the nation 
were the Olympic contests regarded, that some 
writers completed the progress of time by their 
number ; and the Greeks, as a community, though 
with some exceptions, counted no reward unde- 
served by the victors. In Athenian society it was 
maintained and perhaps proven that physical cul- 
ture is entirely compatible with the highest intel- 
lectual attainments. In Sparta, the effect of one- 
sided education was manifested ; for there the body 
received more attention than the mind, and conse- 
quently that State produced stronger fighters and 
weaker thinkers than its sister commonwealth. The 
esteem in which manly pastimes were held by the 



140 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

most enlightened among the ancients is witnessed 
by the tributes paid to their utiHty by Aristotle, 
Plato, Cicero, Horace, and Xenophon. The Isist- 
named writer says : 

The invention of the art of hunting is from the gods. . . 
These are the men [Nestor, Amphiaraus, Meleager, The- 
seus, Ulysses, yEneas, and Achilles] whom the good still 
love and the bad envy. If any calamities happened to city 
or king in Greece, these men were the deliverers ; if any 
quarrel or war arose between Greece and the barbarians, the 
Greeks conquered by means of such men as these, and 
Greece became invincible. My advice, therefore, to the 
young is that they should not despise hunting nor any other 
training ; for by such means men become good soldiers and 
excel in other accomplishments by which they are of neces- 
sity led to think, speak, and act rightly.^ 

Solon, likewise, in answer to the Scythian Ana- 
charsis, testifies : 

Were we present at the Olympic, Isthmian, or Panathe- 
naic games you would see in what took place that we are 
not wrong in being so keen for these spectacles. I could 
not, on my honor, give you any idea of the pleasure of 
being seated in the midst of an enthusiastic audience, and 
of seeing the bravery of the athletes, the beauty of their 
bodies, their admirable poses, their wonderful agility, their 
indefatigable force, their daring, their rivalry, their invinci- 
ble courage, their incessant efforts for victory. ^ 

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in his book on 
"Athens," points out the fact **that athletic games 
preceded the date of civilization," and that being 

^ ' ' Xenophontis Opuscula Equestria et Venatica, ' ' etc. Lib. 
VI. Leipsic, 1815. 

2 "The Century," April, 1896, p. 805. 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS I4I 

" originally associated with festivals, they came to 
assume a sacred character" ; and he gives a strik- 
ing account of the *' Olympiads," of the sanctity 
that attached to the territory where the festivities 
were held and to the persons of those who shared 
in the foot-races, **the wrestling, leaping, quoiting, 
darting, boxing," and of other gymnastic feats and 
exercises. Consequently, he adds, ** No sangui- 
nary contest with weapons, no gratuitous ferocities, 
no struggle between man and beast, polluted the 
festival dedicated to the Olympian god. Even 
boxing with the cestus was less esteemed than the 
other athletic exercises and was excluded from the 
games exhibited by Alexander in his Asiatic in- 
vasions." Nor were these glad solemnities without 
very practical intent ; for, as Lord Lytton has ex- 
plained at length, they were designed "to promote 
physical education, by teaching that the body has 
its honors as well as the intellect, and to feed as a 
passion, as a motive, as an irresistible incentive, 
the desire of glory." Such entertainments as these 
were equally popular at a later day aniong the 
Romans, but they lost, when fostered by that people 
of "blood and iron," their religious aspect and, 
indeed, degenerated into brutal spectacles. Even 
among the Greeks they were not entirely free from 
abuses, as we shall see farther on ; but the Romans 
very speedily rendered them instruments of cruelty 
and the means of splendid profligacy. 

To appreciate the fascination that athletics of 
every kind had for the people of antiquity, one 
needs to familiarize himself with descriptions given 
by famous authors of their character and achieve- 



142 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

ments. All that the eloquence of genius and art 
could do to make these accounts vivid, picturesque, 
and stimulating, has been freely lavished on the 
task, just as, in our day, the resources of rhetoric 
are exhausted in portraying a prize-fight or horse- 
race. Take, as an illustration of the truth of what 
I say, Ovid's famous picture of the Calydonian 
hunt. His glorious verse discloses the primeval 
forest, never despoiled by man of its giant trees : 
*' Silva freqiiens trabibus quain nulla ceciderat 
CBtaSy' under whose damp, darkening shade, and in 
the depths of whose tangled maze of drooping 
boughs and brushwood the wild boar has his lair. 
Then how minutely he portrays all the preparations 
made to start the monster from his covert and 
bring him at once to bay ! The decisive moment 
comes : man and beast confront each other. 
Echion hurls his javelin and, harmless, it whizzes 
past the brute ; and Jason follows, and with no 
more success ; but devout Ampycides breathes a 
prayer to Phoebus for assistance and lets fly his 
deadly weapon, only, however, to strike, but not to 
kill. The boar is now aroused and assails Eupala- 
mon and Pelagon, who are borne helpless from the 
field, while timid Ensesimus is gored in the thigh 
as he essays to fly. Then the twin brothers, Castor 
and Pollux, engage in the fearful combat, but it is 
reserved to Atalanta, the swift-footed maiden, to 
draw the first blood and rejoice the heart of her 
lover, Meleager. But still the conflict rages with 
varying fortune, until at last Meleager brings it to 
an end by a well directed thrust from his lance and 
by at once closing with the animal in furious fight. 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 1 43 

Then follow the shouts of triumph and all the ex- 
citing movements that announce the chase over and 
that every one, except the maimed and wounded 
hunters, is perfectly content. 

But no reproduction of the Latin poet's picture 
can convey an adequate idea of the coloring and 
abundance of vitality that mark the original. More 
than worthy to rank with Ovid's masterpiece of 
animated writing stands Homer's immortal de- 
scription of a chariot race. Five charioteers con- 
tend for the prizes — Eumelus, Diomedes, Mene- 
laus, Antilochus, and Meriones. How our blood 
is stirred as we follow the racers around the goal — 
Eumelus first, closely pursued by Diomedes and 
his Trojan horses — and notice how the leader meets 
with a disaster, the chariot yoke breaking and he 
himself being hurled to the ground, while his com- 
petitor forges ahead ! Then comes Antilochus, a 
splendid driver but with an inferior team, who, 
though he cannot hope to pass the Trojan steeds, 
will not permit Menelaus to outstrip him. Onward 
the chariots rush ; the dust rises in clouds ; the 
multitude of spectators is roused to a pitch of 
wild excitement ; Idomeneus and Ajax, who are 
watching the sport, discuss and quarrel, and Achilles 
keeps them from unseemly blows ; and then, in the 
whirlwind and tumult, Diomedes comes to the mark 
an*easy victor. The usual cheers, clamorous con- 
tentions, and threatening bravado, and then a 
silence and stillness, come to the scene and to all 
the heroic actors. We draw a sigh of relief when 
we know it is all over, and yet we are anxious to 
see the performance repeated. 



144 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Such races as these took place during the Olym- 
pic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games ; they 
were conducted by stewards called Hellanodicse, 
and they were personally shared in by the noblest 
and greatest of the citizens. Nor were they con- 
fined to Grecian territory. We have glowing ac- 
counts of them and of the vast circus that accom- 
modated at one time three hundred and eighty 
thousand spectators, and that occupied the space 
between the Palatine and Aventine Hills at Rome. 
Inge ^ tells us that the people of that famous city 
would regale themselves with a ceaseless succession 
of chariot races from sunrise to sunset through the 
days of several weeks. And the most brilliant of 
their literati would count it a privilege to rehearse 
the story of the contests and victories in stately 
prose and swelling verse. Xenophon expatiates on 
outdoor pastimes and the rules that should be ob- 
served in rendering them successful ; and Callima- 
chus, Oppian, and Virgil are not indifferent to the 
varied attractions of manly sports. 

Even the gentle recreation, fishing, had ardent 
admirers among the Greeks and Romans, and 
among their writers too. Homer refers to this 
amusement in the words : 

As when an angler on a prominent rock 

Drags from the sea to shore, with hook and line, » 

A weighty fish. 

And according to Athenseus, there were entire 
treatises or poems on the subject of fishing penned 

1 "Society in Rome," p. 216. 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS I45 

by Caecilius, Numenius, Pancrates the Arcadian, 
and Oppian the CiHcian ; and Martial, in one of 
his epigrams, draws this moral from the theme, and 
that too, quite in the modern style : 

All treach'rous gifts and bribes I hate, 
For gifts, like hooks, oft hold a bait ; 
Who has not seen the scarus rise. 
Decoy' d and caught by fraudful flies ? 

But we are not to suppose that this enthusiastic 
admiration for athleticism was shared by the Greeks 
and Latins without any dissenting voices. As at 
present, so in the past, there were those who se- 
riously questioned the usefulness and desirableness 
of games demanding physical exertion. Euripides, 
as quoted at the beginning of this chapter, writes 
in a cynical strain on the subject. He scoffs at the 
victors in the public games, and contends that such 
honors as they receive should be reserved for the 
leaders who achieve in the nobler walks of life : 

'Twere better far to adorn good men and wise 
With those victorious wreaths ; they are the due 
Of those who govern States with wisdom sound, 
And practise justice, faith, and temperance. 

These sentiments of the tragic poet v/ere echoed 
by others who, like certain tribes, never could 
understand what pleasure could be derived from 
any kind of exertion. Mr. Mahaffy, in his fasci- 
nating book on ''Greek Culture," furnishes an in- 
teresting example of this obtuseness culled from 
the pages of Strabo. He relates how some " Can- 

K 



146 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

tabri, or wild Spanish natives, who were at one 
time staying as allies in a Roman camp, on seeing 
the officers walking up and down for exercise, 
laid hold of them to bring them to their tents, 
thinking they must be mad to be exerting them- 
selves without visible motive, such as hunting or 
fishing." These dreary souls were oblivious to the 
benefits attending a sharp ten-mile walk, and prob- 
ably would have regarded a mountain climb just 
for the fun of it as an incontrovertible sign of an 
advanced stage of idiocy. Their incorrigible stu- 
pidity has survived and, in some quarters of the 
globe to-day, our fair-complexioned and rosy- 
cheeked girls are considered somewhat tete montee, 
on account of their participation in tennis and in 
bicycle expeditions, and because of their summer 
rambles up and down sequestered glens and over 
breezy hills or sea-washed rocks ; while manly 
pedestrians are looked on with grave suspicion, as 
though they had escaped from detention and were 
either cranks or tramps. 

Dear Canon Kingsley never heard the last of 
his phrase, *' muscular Christianity," and though he 
only advocated a ''sound mind in a sound body," 
he was really criticized as though he had invented 
a new heresy and aimed to exalt the flesh over the 
spirit in religion. He remonstrated with thought- 
less writers who kept on imputing to him views he 
had never inculcated ; and even now, after all his 
protests, there is a widespread impression that the 
famous Vicar of Eversley was guilty of imputing to 
athleticism a mysterious if not a saving grace. 
These misapprehensions undoubtedly originated in 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 1 4/ 

the deep-rooted prejudice against robustness in the 
saintly Hfe and in the assumption that physical 
inertia is an admirable quality in men, and particu- 
larly so in women and clergymen. Such opinions 
are not so extensively held to-day as they were 
yesterday ; but nevertheless, they are cherished ; 
and some persons seek a sanction for them in the 
admitted fact that the Hebrews were not as the 
Greeks in their enjoyments of the stadium and the 
hippodrome. Such entertainments were unknown 
among them. Games are, however, mentioned in 
the Old Testament, but not such as these. Jewish 
children are spoken of as playing in the streets of 
Jerusalem.^ There are also references to mirth, to 
jesting, and to the keeping of tame birds ;^ but race- 
courses and theatres were not part of the Hebrew 
civilization, and athletics as such seem never to have 
received very much attention. But it is erroneous 
to assume that the people were ascetically inclined. 
They had numerous joyous festivals, and it is only 
reasonable to suppose that these in some measure 
served the purpose accomplished by the public 
contests of other nationalities ; and as the general 
life was mainly spent in the open air, and training 
for warlike service could rarely be relaxed, the 
need for special outdoor amusements was probably 
never keenly felt. All that can fairly be inferred 
from these particulars is that circumstances pre- 
vented physical culture from acquiring with the 
chosen race the prominence it attained among the 
Greeks ; not that there was really any aversion to 

* Zech. 8:5; and Matt, ii : i6. ^ Job 41 : 5. 



148 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

exhibitions of skill by which it could be promoted, 
unless they called for such brutal excesses as 
occurred frequently in the gymnasium where the 
discus was chiefly practised, or in the amphitheatre 
where lives were sacrificed in battles with wild 
beasts. The Jews notably were endowed with the 
instincts of humanity, and though, judged by the 
condemnation of the prophets, they may have 
been as a rule no better morally than their neigh- 
bors, they happily shrank from the cruelties and 
abominations countenanced and encouraged by the 
Romans in the name of legitimate or exhilarating 
sport 

And their position is not unlike that which has 
been maintained by the more temperate and dis- 
criminating among the Puritans, Not a few persons 
regard the church as opposed to diversions and as 
favorable to asceticism and dyspepsia. Of course, 
she has given some reason for this misapprehen- 
sion, as when her Antonys went forth as hermits 
to desert solitudes and when her over-scrupulous 
saints gave occasion for the pungent satire of 
Butler. But the extreme views maintained at vari- 
ous times by some of her representatives, and 
usually called forth, as in the days of Charles I. of 
England, by the grossness and brutality of public 
manners, were designed rather as a protest against 
excesses than as an unqualified condemnation of 
all amusements. Read the *' Book of Sports" 
proclaimed by James I. in 161 8, and you will find 
that dancing, archery, and all athletic games, were 
expressly allowed after the morning church services 
on Sunday. Evelyn, in his "Diary," gives a court 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 1 49 

scene occurring on the last Sabbath but one of 
Charles 11. 's reign, in which he presents Dr. Dove 
preaching before the king in the morning, and in the 
evening his majesty profanely gaming in the com- 
pany of his three concubines. Indeed, so generally 
was the Lord's Day desecrated, that according to 
the elder Disraeli, **a tradition exists at Geneva .that 
when John Knox visited Calvin on a Sunday, he 
found his austere coadjutor bowling on a green." Is 
it to be wondered at, then, that some consciences 
should have been troubled, and that, in seeking to 
arrest the drift toward frivolity and vice, men 
should have expressed themselves harshly and in a 
spirit apparently narrow and fanatical ? We ought 
to thank God for the bigotry — if it deserves the 
name — of these same Puritans ; for if they had not 
been so intolerant and so ungracious as they were, 
society would before this have been smothered in 
its own indecencies. When the representatives of 
these stern reformers migrated to America, some 
of them imagined that the evil conditions they had 
warred against in the Old World had been imported 
with them to the New ; and so they continued their 
denunciations, which, as the years rolled on, de- 
generated, in rural communities cut off from inter- 
course with the centers of thought, into a senseless 
tirade against pastimes and diversions, instead of 
becoming a faithful warning against their abuse. 
Hence, in some portions of our country there have 
been held untenable views on the subject of amuse- 
ments which have led to divisions in churches and 
have tended to alienate many worthy people from 
their membership. But we are rapidly recovering 



150 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

from these erroneous opinions and are coming to 
recognize the truth that Christianit)- is no foe to 
harmless mirth and wholesome diversion, and that 
it is the dut}- of religion to guard them as far as 
possible from per\-ersion. 

While unquestionably there have been particular 
periods when serious people were warranted in 
looking with suspicion on outdoor sports, it will 
surely be conceded that, wisely directed and re- 
strained within reasonable bounds, thev are emi- 
nently fitted to promote physical health and mental 
vigor, and may even conduce to the growth of 
certain manly virtues. A pair of oars and a 
good pull over a stretch of water, or a hard- 
mouthed trotting horse beneath your saddle, will 
draw blood from the brain and bile from the liver 
more quickly than any doctor's prescription. 
"Throw ph}-sic to the dogs,"' my young friends, 
and saw a cord of wood and see how much better 
you will be. If we had fewer medical men and a 
larger number of scientific teachers of g\'mnastics, 
there would be a diminished demand for drugs and 
nostrums. Societv' to-day smells altogether too 
much of the quack medicines hawked in every 
street and of the apothecar}''s shop, when it can 
just as well be fragrant with aroma from the fields 
and flowers. I always like to see boys and girls 
playing in our parks, romping, scrambling, occupied 
with tennis or baseball, or racing to their hearts' 
content ; for I know, while they have only thought 
for the frolic, they are in realit}' developing their 
lungs, expanding their chests, and are la\4ng up a 
store of vitality against the evil hour. Such exer- 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS I5I 

cises elevate the spirits, impart a glow of excite- 
ment, and produce a wholesome sense of fellowship 
with nature. 

I say "wholesome" ; for there is a deep joy in 
feeling that the very sunshine is a part of ourselves, 
and that we may share with the birds their her- 
itage of pure air and freedom. I am aware that 
this decided gain may be sharply challenged by 
those who have in mind sad instances of youths 
whose nerves have been hopelessly shattered by 
overtraining or who have met with painful ac- 
cidents. They may say that these terrible risks 
more than balance the benefits and that it were 
better to dispense with the latter than to incur 
the former. Of course, all I can say is that I do 
not agree with them. I believe that the greatest 
care should be taken to prevent any such disasters 
as are complained of; but I question whether they 
can be entirely averted, and I am sure that they 
are not sufficiently numerous to offset the advan- 
tages enumerated. I think, moreover, what critics 
ought in fairness to concede, that as many mishaps 
occur indoors as out of doors ; that as many cuts 
from knives, and as many sprained ankles, wounds, 
and bruises are received in the management of 
domestic affairs as in the rational enjoyments of the 
playground. If we are to be deterred by a per- 
petual dread of some misfortune we may as well 
give up housekeeping as recreation and go out of 
existence altogether. Now, really, is there not too 
much coddling and pampering of the flesh ? Are 
we not in danger of overdoing this tender solicitude 
for the body? May it not be that this petting, 



152 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

caressing, and this shielding of the physical from 
every kind of exposure are, in the long run, mis- 
chievous and ruinous ? The Rev. Charles H. Spur- 
geon is reported to have said to his students on one 
occasion : "If any of you possess delightfully warm 
woolen comforters, with which may be associated 
the most tender remembrance of mother or sister, 
treasure them, — treasure them in the bottom of 
your trunk, — but do not expose them to any vulgar 
use by wrapping them round your necks. If any 
brother wants to die of influenza, let him wear a 
warm scarf round his neck ; and then one of these 
nights he will forget it and catch a cold that will 
last him the rest of his natural life." In my own 
ministry, in the earlier days when I had many gor- 
geous dressing-gowns and resplendent slippers sent 
me, I nearly fell a victim to this fatal gift — a com- 
forter. A lady, the wife of a deacon, presented 
me with one made of otter fur, and speedily a 
graveyard cough gave hoarse intimations of ap- 
proaching immortality. Fortunately I realized my 
peril before it was too late, and cast aside forever 
such maleficent luxuries. And now, when I hear 
timid souls advocating so delicate a treatment of 
the body as must result in languor, listnessness, 
and general debility, I recall my own experience 
and the quaint words of Mr. Spurgeon, and entreat 
them not to commit suicide by wrapping them- 
selves up too warmly and by housing themselves 
too closely. 

Although we must admit that Atlas, Hercules, 
Samson, Cyclops, Goliath, and the rest of their 
class, are not encouraging illustrations of the in- 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS I 53 

fluence of muscular development on the expansion 
and growth of the intellect, yet we must concede 
that physical soundness, in the nature of things, 
ought to be favorable to mental vigor. This, of 
course, presupposes an important prerequisite — a 
mind to be invigorated. No amount of boxing, 
fencing, or wrestling can make good an original 
deficiency of that sort. Where brain is lacking at 
the start, increase in brawn will only render the 
destitution more apparent without ever furnishing 
a substitute. Ishmael, the uncle of Esau, who was 
a brave hunter and accustomed to abundant exer- 
cise, is termed in the Bible a *'wild man," or, to 
translate it literally, '* a wild ass of a man " ; and 
where this type of animalism predominates, I con- 
fess no remedy is to be found in athletics. A 
powerful mind in a weak body will undoubtedly 
at times do wonderful things ; but a feeble mind 
in a powerful body will continue to do feebly. We 
should discriminate and should not expect too 
much of physical culture. It cannot do the im- 
possible ; it cannot make bricks without straw, nor 
thinkers without brains. But given mental capacity 
to start with, and the inference is rational that in 
proportion as the body is robust, sturdy, and 
healthy, must the intellect be stimulated to greater 
activity, be able to labor longer, and with less inter- 
ruption and with less sense of exhaustion. 

The effect of college sports has been the subject 
of much discussion, and there is a widespread im- 
pression that they are deleterious to the real work 
and aim of student life. Some such bias, doubtless, 
led the "New York Herald," several years ago, 



154 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

when a young lady stood first in the competition 
for the six eight-hundred-dollar scholarships at 
Cornell University, to inquire, " What's the matter 
with the young men of this day and generation ? " 
and prompted "The Watchman" to reply, "Most 
of them probably are playing baseball or betting 
on the game." The insinuation, though very 
likely not seriously intended, is, that interest in 
recreation and pastimes tends to unfit our youth 
for that attainment of excellency in scholarship, and 
that, had they given proper attention to their books, 
they would necessarily have beaten the girl who 
carried off the prize. Such assumptions are unten- 
able. There are exceptional women just as there 
are exceptional men, and when they enter the 
arena, though their rivals may be earnest, if they 
are commonplace they will assuredly be defeated. 
Moreover, in this instance, the young men who con- 
tended with the young women most probably were 
not of the baseball fanatics, but of the more studi- 
ous and sedentary class, or else they would not 
have ventured to compete. Nothing, therefore, 
has been proven by the incident which afforded 
two journals an opportunity for a facetious fling at 
athletics, except that some girls are more highly 
endowed intellectually than some boys, and are 
capable of surpassing their male inferiors — a fact 
that really needs no proof and one that will, I am 
persuaded, be more apparent in the twentieth cen- 
tury than in the nineteenth. 

And now college dons and proctors, presidents 
and professors, come to the front and testify that 
physical training and school games, unless carried 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS I 55 

to unjustifiable extremes, have nothing whatever to 
do with such discomfitures as the one chronicled 
by the mortified masculine editor of the ** Herald," 
and that on the whole they are good and whole- 
some, and that generally the youths who excel in 
them make the greatest advance in sound learning 
and genuine culture. This is the latest deliverance 
on the point under discussion, and having con- 
fidence in the judgment of the experienced teachers 
who thus speak, I, for one, shall continue to ad- 
vocate, in the interest of mind, the thorough dis- 
cipline and drilling of the body. 

But in addition I plead for it as not altogether 
unserviceable to virtue. Whatever tends to give 
man the mastery over his lower nature and im- 
poses on him the necessity of self-restraint cannot 
fail to be distinctly a moral gain. The Apostle 
Paul, doubtless perceiving this, drew from the 
Olympian or the Isthmian games imagery calculated 
to intensify Christian activity. He writes, and his 
words deserve a place in memory : 

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but 
one receiveth the prize ? So run, that ye may obtain. And 
every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all 
things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown ; but 
we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; 
so fight I, not as one that beateth the air : But I keep under 
my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any 
means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be 
a castaway (i Cor. 9 : 24-27). 

Here self-discipline and self-government are mag- 
nified, and whoever undertakes to compete with 
others must learn how to exercise the one and 



156 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

maintain the other. No excuses grounded in 
theories of fatalism will be accepted in the hour of 
contest for manifest weakness. The plea will not 
be accepted then by the Hellanodicae or judges 
that the candidate was prevented by diseased 
appetite or by an uncontrollable natural viciousness 
from indulgence in the delights of wine-bibbing, 
smoking, and rioting. Such flimsy defenses are 
never recognized in practical affairs. When there 
is nothing at stake, or where the claims of religion 
are exclusively involved, it seems allowable for men 
to extenuate wrong-doing by the baby argument 
that they were the victims of overpowering neces- 
sity. But when races and football and other such 
momentous things are in order, this kind of talk 
would only be jeered at as the quintessence of 
folly, and consequently it is never heard. It is 
really edifying to see what our athletes submit to 
that they may win a paltry prize. Inge ^ writes 
regarding the sharp schooling claimants for public 
honors had to submit to in the Roman period : 
"The training through which the gladiator went 
was methodical and severe. He was hardened to 
bear pain by being beaten with rods and whips. 
His diet was regulated with a view to increase to 
the utmost his strength and activity. He was con- 
stantly practised in the use of the weapons he was 
to use in the arena, and great attention was paid to 
bearing and deportment, which were almost as 
much criticised as skill in fencing." And in our 
day similar hardships are cheerfully endured in 

1 * ' Society under the Caesars. ' ' 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 15/ 

preparing for some notable trial of strength. Huge 
monsters, who at other times are the creatures of 
their lawless passions, settle down as models of 
prudent asceticism. They eat, drink, walk, sleep, 
exercise, according to rule, and find no serious diffi- 
culty in keeping themselves in absolute subjection. 
An English writer, referring to the physiological 
and psychological effects of diet, remarks : ** Kean's 
dinner was regularly adapted to his part ; he ate 
pork when he had to play tyrants ; beef, for mur- 
derers ; boiled mutton, for lovers. Byron, seeing 
Moore sedulously occupied with an underdone beef- 
steak, inquired, 'Are you not afraid of committing 
murder after such a meal ? ' " The most brutal prize- 
fighters understand very well that there is some sort 
of connection between their food, between its qual- 
ity and quantity, and their physical development ; 
and consequently whatever their preferences may 
be, they readily yield to the conditions imposed. 
Every time a slugger goes into training he shows 
that it is possible for mind to triumph over matter 
and for spirit to subdue rebellious flesh. As an 
object lesson, therefore, every such case has a kind 
of moral value. The pugilist at such times, though 
all unintentionally, turns preacher and proclaims 
by his example that the animal in man can be 
tamed and that the tyranny of appetite is not om- 
nipotent. 

Of course, I admit that the demoralizing exhibition 
that often follows these instructive instances of self- 
denial does more permanent harm than the ephem- 
eral self-denial does good ; and that, partly be- 
cause the spectators cannot help but be influenced 



158 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

by the exhibition, and may not take any pains to 
consider the ethical import of the preceding severe 
self-discipUne. Nevertheless, the truth taught re- 
mains, that no man is justified in yielding to inbred 
appetites, when these gross heroes teach by their 
own victor}- over self that they can be resisted and 
conquered. It is likewise to be remembered that 
where professional skill and success are not the 
main objects, the cultivation of self-control, the 
training of eve or hand to accuracv, the master^' 
acquired over the ner\-es, and even the conscious- 
ness of strength, tend to manliness of thought 
and of carriage ; and this, while not perhaps in 
itself virtue, croes a lono- wav toward it and is con- 
ducive to its growth. 

All this, however, presupposes the absence of 
abuse and of those pen'ersions that render useful 
games and recreations a curse and a nuisance. 
Such thev necessarilv become when thev deepen- 
erate into exhibitions of skilled ferocit>\ Sir 
Edward Bulwer L}-tton calls attention to the fact 
that at the first, and in their palmy days, the 
Olympides were free from brutalizing features. 
Women were not permitted to witness the engage- 
ments. *' No sanguinan,- contests with weapons, 
no gratuitous ferocities, no struggle between man 
and beast (the graceless butcheries of Rome), pol- 
luted the festival dedicated to the Olympian god. 
Even boxing with the cestus was less esteemed than 
the other athletic exercises, and was excluded from 
the games exhibited by Alexander in his Asiatic 
invasions." With the Romans it was far otherwise. 
** In the reign of Trajan, ten thousand gladiators 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS I 59 

were exposed to fight Even the sense of the ludi- 
crous was appealed to by combats of blindfolded 
men, of dwarfs and deformed persons, while there 
are several instances of women descending into the 
arena." Inge says truly : '* Even the holocausts of 
victims slaughtered on the sacrificial stone of the 
Aztec war-god must have been less demoralizing to 
the spectators than the Roman games. The con- 
tinued succession of these barbarous spectacles ; 
the intense enthusiasm they excited ; and the 
absence of other matters of interest which might 
divert the attention, kept the imagination constantly 
fixed on these scenes of torture and death." 

And how is it in our time, in this enlightened 
and Christian century? Are we really civilized or 
does the taint of original savagery cling to us? 
The answer, and one not very encouraging, may be 
spelt out of certain humiliating scenes. Not long 
since a woman encountered a man in a Western 
prize-ring ; and quite recently two men were 
pounded to death for ** sport" by bull-necked 
pugilists ; and even within a dozen years, refined 
and cultured Boston furnished an audience, com- 
puted at sixteen thousand, to evince its apprecia- 
tion of the champion Sullivan, and among these 
worshipers of brawn were official dignitaries, whose 
successors in office could not find time to wel- 
come the representatives of the Women's Christian 
Temperance Union to the metropolis of New 
England. Efforts to suppress the ring are met 
with jeers and contumely. A board of aldermen, 
knowing that the sentiment of the best elements of 
society is opposed to boxing matches, hastens, on 



l6o MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

its election and before it cares for the legitimate 
interests of the people, to license them for the 
gratification of its hoodlum constituency. As a re- 
sult of this encouragement on the part of city fathers, 
two roughs v/ithout license, meet in a barn, and one 
of the poor fellows is murdered by the other. The 
dignified determination of the authorities in Texas 
to guard their commonwealth from the pollution 
of the prize-ring, and the wondering scorn of the 
Mexicans at our affected horror of bull-fights, while 
they are not barbarous enough to allow two human 
beings to beat each other into bloody pulp and 
blackened flesh, has not succeeded in shaming the 
country at large into the abrogation of all such de- 
grading spectacles. Newspapers of repute continue 
to give detailed accounts of every notable con- 
test between the so-called light-weight, or feather- 
weight, or heavy-weight champions of the '* manly 
art" (?), with all the disgusting and sickening par- 
ticulars of broken teeth, smashed faces, and pounded 
ribs. The morbid interest which attaches to such 
scenes is disclosed, not merely by the pains taken 
to give accurate and picturesque accounts of the 
battle, but by the groups of men, occasionally 
assuming the proportions of a crowd, around the 
bulletin boards, to learn the first news of its prog- 
ress. Apparently, more interest is taken by our 
citizens in coarse and bloody frays than in the 
triumphs of art and industry. How rarely is a new 
poem or a new picture portrayed in the columns of 
a paper at such length as a prize-fight, and how 
rarely is such a description rewarded with the ab- 
sorbed attention of the pubHc ! We condemn the 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS l6l 

Romans for their gladiatorial shows and the Span- 
iards for their bull-fights. It is not, however, on 
record that the former people ever chose a glad- 
iator to the Senate, or that the latter ever sent a 
successful rnatador to represent them in the Cortes. 
It was left to a free and enlightened State in the 
new world to send a pugilist to Congress. Are 
we much better than those nations whose cruel 
sports we rightly denounce as barbarities ? 

Occasionally a governor like Governor Lowrie 
of Louisiana resents the insult committed against 
the commonwealth in choosing its territory as the 
field for an inglorious fight ; but in the majority of 
instances the majesty of the law is not vindicated. 
The police authorities do not always interfere, 
though they know in advance that a combat is to 
take place and could prevent it if they were so 
minded. And this official connivance and the 
palpable interest of communities in the brawny 
bulHes of the ring tend to increase perceptibly the 
number of contestants and to multiply the horrible 
maulings and beatings. We are dishonored as a 
nation by the repetition of these monstrous brutal- 
ities, and hardly any one seems to have the courage 
to protest. And yet from these scenes muscular 
cowards go to the saloon, there imbibe freely, and 
on returning to their homes revive the impressions 
of the performance they have witnessed by felling 
a wife with a blow, or by indulging in the "manly 
art" of thrashing a troublesome child. Boys like- 
wise reading of deeds approved by their fathers, 
let loose the tiger in them and in their turn be- 
come brawlers and strikers. So the spirit of fierce- 

L 



1 62 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

ness grows, and the ''inhumanity of man to man" 
is stimulated and the advance of refinement, broth- 
erly sympathy, and religion is seriously impeded. 

It must also be said that when any pastime or 
game is merely made an occasion for the indulgence 
of gambling and betting, however useful it may be 
in itself, unhappily it is being converted into an 
instrument of evil. From the beginning this form 
of mischievous iniquity has beset athletic sports 
and deprived them of much of their value and 
charm. The Roman chariot races were subjects 
of betting, and cards of the races {libelli) were 
issued with the names and colors of riders and 
drivers, and "books" were made somewhat as in 
modern times ; and from Pausanias we gather that, 
for bribes, the ancient jockeys had been known to 
sell a contest, as has been done more than once in 
the annals of the "turf" ; and even the Greeks 
were not above suspicion of " deals," as when Mene- 
laus intimates that he is being cheated out of a 
prize by Antilochus.^ The fathers were no better 
than the children ; but ought not the children to 
have progressed beyond the moral life of the 
fathers? Nevertheless, they do not seem to have 
improved very much. The Postmaster-General of 
England, Mr, Fawcett, left the melancholy testi- 
mony, as the result of his own observation, that 
nearly all the young men who had gone wrong in 
his department had been ruined by betting. And 
the late Mr. Greville, referring to the Epsom races, 
wrote : " This demoralizing drudgery reduces me to 

^ Dr. Smitli's "Diet, of Greek and Roman Antiquities " : *' Hip- 
podrome, " " Circus, " " Olympia. ' ' 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 1 63 

the level of all that is most disreputable and despic- 
able ; for my thoughts are eternally absorbed by 
it. Jockeys, trainers, and blacklegs are my com- 
panions, and I cannot leave it off, though I am dis- 
gusted with the occupation all the time." What a 
deplorable confession ! 

Not very long since, Savernake Forest, the his- 
toric seat of Brudenell-Bruces, was offered at sale 
to meet debts — chiefly gambling debts ; and other 
sacrifices of family estates have been made to 
meet liabilities contracted on the race-course ; 
and sometimes, with property, reputation has also 
gone. Charteris, a gentlemanly appearing scamp, 
remarked to a man of recognized sterling in- 
tegrity, ** I would give a thousand pounds for 
your good name." **Why?" inquired the repu- 
table individual. ''Because," replied the incor- 
rigible rogue, " I could make ten thousand pounds 
by it." Standing counts for something in this 
world of ours, and when money is hazarded, it 
ought to be understood that credit and honor are 
likewise at stake. This is not so fully realized as it 
should be in America, not even in colleges and 
universities. There is more gambling in the latter 
places among students, in connection with 'Varsity 
races, football, and the like, than is good either for 
high morality or high scholarship. And when 
these and other games are merely means for the 
formation of a deadly habit, they had better be abol- 
ished ; for let it be distinctly recognized that ath- 
letics are advantageous only as they are shared in, 
and not merely as they are witnessed. What 
benefit is there to your thews and muscles, when 



164 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

you sit still for two or three hours, though you 
may behold many brawny fellows competing on 
the field? I grant there may be exhilaration and 
excitement to you ; but what of physical develop- 
ment? Of the latter, none at all. But if, to your 
attitude of onlooker, you join the betting mania 
and are present at the pastime as a matter of busi- 
ness, you have made what might have been to you 
more or less of a gain, a loss and a bane. By this 
process athletics sacrifice their character. They 
then debilitate instead of invigorate, and corrupt 
instead of elevate, and become the precursor and 
preliminary to criminal acts. A gentleman in 
Quincy, pointing to a hotel, observed with great 
earnestness : ** One of our salesmen committed 
suicide there. He lost his money at play and was 
found dead in his bed next morning." Few words, 
and yet full of tragical import. And thus, by graft- 
ing a vice on what is essentially virtuous, a most 
wholesome growth is changed into a poisonous 
plant. 

It only remains to be said that unless physical 
pastimes are kept subordinate and conducive to the 
spiritual and intellectual life, they are taken out of 
their true relation and cease to be a blessing. They 
were never designed to be the end of existence, 
and they have no genuine claim to the chief place 
in man's affections. On this ground, if on none 
other, they ought to be discouraged on the Lord's 
Day. Sunday baseball and other games, unhap- 
pily increasing in frequency, cannot but impair the 
religious spirit ; for when the mind is so engaged 
with ** stops," "catches," ** pitching," at the time 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS l6$ 

usually devoted to serious contemplation, there is 
little probability that it will give itself to sacred 
themes on days crowded with secular affairs. To 
eliminate the due observance of Sunday from the 
life of man is generally to shut him up to world- 
liness in thought and feeling. For this reason, I 
am not enthusiastically optimistic at the widespread 
prevalence of bicycling. The exercise, I am sure, 
must be delightful and in itself innocent enough. 
But there is such a thing as making this new means 
of locomotion an instrument of spiritual deteriora- 
tion. When the house of God is abandoned en- 
tirely for its pleasures and Sunday is converted into 
a season of pastime, it becomes a mischievous 
snare. Interest in heavenly things will always 
decline when the thought of diversion is paramount. 
Is it not possible for us to be reasonable ? Perfec- 
tion of the soul is our supreme business, and per- 
fection of the body ought to be tributary to this 
engagement. Let us respect the ordinance of 
God. It will not in any sense diminish our joys, 
and it will assuredly heighten our dignity and use- 
fulness. 

Our remonstrance must go farther. There are 
instances, perhaps not many but sufficiently numer- 
ous, of fine, ruddy lads being so bewitched by the 
Olympian attractions of Hellenic life as to lose 
their zest for study and for the nobler duties of 
their younger years. Slowly, they have gone back- 
ward and downward toward the barbaric coarseness 
whence their ancestors gradually and painfully 
emerged. The fair humanities have been aban- 
doned. Literature has come to have no charm in 



1 66 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

comparison with the cclumns of sporting papers ; 
and clubs and saloons, where prize-fighting and 
other contests form the theme of conversation, have 
come to be invested with more importance than 
class-rooms or libraries. The animal, with velvet 
and unheard tread, steals back out of the deep re- 
cesses and mysterious fastnesses of the youth's 
complex nature, and before he realizes it has its 
paw on the spiritual and intellectual. He may 
make a show of resistance, but probably will finally 
succumb. At first, his remarkable physique and 
enormous power of endurance attract attention, 
and his vanity is flattered by admirers ; but there 
follows the inevitable abasement. Even the splen- 
did animalism in him is compelled to suffer shame. 
Strong drink increases its hold on the infatuated 
athlete apace. The frequent poundings to which 
he is subject batter from his soul every trace of 
God's image. Increase of years and increase of 
inebriation bring diminishing skill, loss of prestige 
and of income ; and in the end, with self-respect 
forever gone, he gravitates into the position of 
bravo and bully in the halls of polluting and damn- 
ing pleasure. 

Sully Prudhomme, a French writer not very well 
known in America, has an exquisite poem, entitled 
^' Le Liony In it, he represents the king of beasts, 
called by Victor Hugo " le grand reveur solitaire de 
r ombre,'' as v/aking from a deep sleep prolonged 
through the heat of a burning African day. He 
describes him as emerging slowly from his lair, 
moving majestically into the deepening shadows of 
the night, and as lighting up his path through the 



OVERVALUING ATHLETIC SPORTS 16/ 

forest with the solemn brilliancy of his eyes. The 
poet ventures to interpret the royal brute, and 
ascribes to him rapture as he views the crescent 
moon and the glory of the stars, and attributes to 
him the manner of the sage and the mystery of a 
priest of night : 

Son allure est d' un sage ; il marc he avec mystere, 
Comme un pretre des nuits. 

But a change comes over the life of this superb 
creature. He falls into the hands of his enemy 
and is transported beyond the seas, where the 
reader discovers him in captivity. Restlessly and 
sadly, he moves about his cage, wondering at the 
iron which defies his invincible teeth and cowering 
before the supreme fascination of the human eye. 
The scene is pitiable in the extreme ; but there is 
another scene more humiliating still. The poem 
may be taken as a commentary on the grandeur 
and the abasement of the physical in man. How 
like in appearance the strong and thoroughly de- 
veloped youth to one of the immortals ! The 
muscular and well-rounded limbs, the deep and 
massive chest, the clear eye, and the stately tread 
are calculated to recall the heroes of mythology — 
the Hercules, the Thors, the Balders. But if this 
beauty has been gained at the cost of the spiritual, 
it is after all only a superb animalism that has in 
its path an ignominious destiny. A prison is its 
inevitable doom — a prison whose bars cannot be 
broken and from whose narrow and monotonous 
limits there is no escape. By just so much, as a man 
is better than a lion, is this resemblance in their 



1 68 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

possible fate terrible to contemplate. No spectacle 
in all this sorrowful world is so sorrowful as that of 
a human being deprived of every trace of god- 
likeness and sunken into the shame of animalism 
in bonds — in bonds to base appetites and passions 
and to the mean and ferocious duties of an infamous 
vocation. 

O wretched state ! O bosom black as death ! 
O limed soul that, struggling to be free, 
Art more engaged. 



VI 
SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 



At length corruption, like a general flood. 
Did deluge all ; and avarice creeping on. 
Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun. 
Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks. 
Peeress and butler shared alike the box ; 
And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town. 
And mighty dukes packed cards for half a crown. 



Some in clandestine companies combine ; 
Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line ; 
With air and etnpty names beguile the town, 
And raise new credits first, then cry ''em down ; 
Divide the empty nothing into shares. 
And get the crowd together by the ears. 

IT is remarkable how many people in this busy 
world are seeking a short cut to fortune, if not 
to fame, and how many really expect to be enriched 
without rendering any fair equivalent The im- 
pression widely obtains that this kind of trading 
has often been successful, and that, consequently, 
the principle or lack of principle governing it may 
wisely be adopted in our day. Individuals, not a 
few, imagine themselves so smart and think so 
poorly of the acuteness of their neighbors, that 
they are convinced their ends can readily be ac- 
complished by shrewdness and subtlety ; while most 
of their neighbors think of these individuals as 
they do of them, and thus, reversing the estimate, 

169 



I/O MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

adopt equally cunning tactics by which legitimate 
business methods are superseded. On all sides, 
men and women are plying each other with tricks, 
schemes, and speculative ventures, hoping thereby 
to obtain something for nothing, or for as near 
nothing as possible. The spirit and wisdom of Mr. 
Sludge, "the medium," as represented in his coun- 
sel, seems to be dominant at the close of this 
nineteenth century. Listen attentively and ob- 
serve how faithfully modern society is trying to 
conform to the feline and vulpine sagacity of the 
cheat : 

Be lazily alive, 

Open-mouthed, like my friend, the ant-eater, 
Letting all nature' s loosely guarded motes 
Settle and, slick, be swallowed ! Think yourself 
The one i' the world, the one for whom the world 
Was made, expect it tickling at your mouth ! 
Then will the swarm of busy, buzzing flies, 
Clouds of coincidence, break egg-shell, thrive, 
Breed, multiply, and bring you food enough. 

Thus the lolling, salivary tongue of chicanery, by a 
fatal fascination, draws untold multitudes, and, 
having smothered their possessions in its viscous 
secretions, abandons them, and with them the 
happiness of its helpless victims, to be swallowed 
by the yawning throat of unscrupulous greed. 

The law of the land provides that no contract 
shall be valid where property^ is conveyed without 
an accompanying consideration ; but there is a very 
general disposition, confined apparently to no class 
or pursuit, to evade this wholesome statute. Not 
only in casino and Kursaal at Monaco or Homburg 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING I /I 

is it openly transgressed, but on stock exchanges, 
oil markets, boards of trade, and in almost every 
other department of human endeavor and enter- 
prise, it is ignored as far as possible, and the prin- 
ciple of hazard and chance substituted for that of 
equivalents. The extent of the gambling mania, 
the live and not let live policy — for such it is in 
reality — is hardly suspected, so full is society of 
solemn protestations of mercantile integrity. To 
hear what is professed, one would suppose he had 
come to a community of saints ; to see what can 
be seen, one would conclude he had fallen on a 
den of sharpers and tricksters. It is important, 
not merely for the young but for all people, that no 
soft words, no sweet sentimentality, should hide the 
monstrous proportions of the curse that is, in my 
opinion, slowly eating, like a cancer, the moral life 
of our times. I shall, therefore, in all faithfulness, 
try to give an idea of its appalling dimensions. 

It has been said that gambling, like cholera, 
came to us from Asiatic nations, and that our pas- 
sions increased its power, as our fearful sanitary 
condition intensified the virulence of the plague. 
The Asiatics are, indeed, reckless and infatuated 
players ; for some among them will not hesitate to 
risk the possession of wife, son, or daughter on the 
throw of the dice. Malayans are particularly des- 
perate ; for they will not only sacrifice property, 
but, on chance going irretrievably against them, 
will go forth in a frenzy to slay others and inviting 
any to slay them. The Siamese will barter away 
their personal liberty for means to prolong the ex- 
citement of gaming a little longer ; and to handle 



1/2 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

cards all day and night, half stupefied with opium, 
is a very heaven to the Chinese. Japan was so 
devastated by this passion that her rulers decreed 
death to him who ventured his money at play. 

But these are not the only deluded nations. 
The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, and Ger- 
mans of the past were likewise slaves to the charms 
of diversions seasoned by hazard ; and modern 
Europe, and America as well, is largely influenced 
by the same fascinations. In London, where 
formerly Brookes' Club and Crockford's swallowed 
the estates of foolish aristocrats, and in Paris, 
where Frascati's destroyed the gilded youth of the 
town, there are multitudes of notorious houses 
where fortunes are lost and won. There is prob- 
ably not a community of any note in Great Britain 
or on the continent where opportunities are not af- 
forded for the indulgence of this vice ; nor can we 
boast of a much-improved condition of things in 
America. There used to be establishments in New 
York, known as ''Big Murray's," and ** Ransom's," 
and one very well known at Saratoga, called 
^* Morrissey's." Dr. Jeter, of Richmond, Va., re- 
ferring to that fair city in 1842, said : "There are 
in this place from twenty-five to thirty-five gaming 
establishments, or resorts for sporting men. These 
houses are richly and splendidly furnished, at an 
aggregate probable cost of one hundred thousand 
dollars per annum." Remember that at the time 
referred to Richmond was scarcely more than a 
moderate-sized town and you will hardly fail to 
perceive from Dr. Jeter's representations how great 
a hold the evil he pictured had on the community. 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 73 

The author of " Nether Side of New York " (1872) 
stated that the number of faro banks in that city- 
had never exceeded one hundred ; but he does 
not estimate how many were unknown to the 
poHce. Such places are common enough all over 
the East and the West ; though there was once a 
municipal chief in Chicago who heroically affirmed 
that during his administration they were all suc- 
cessfully closed. 

But we are mistaken if we suppose that this 
habit always seeks the darkness. No ; it displays 
itself in public, and at times not very creditably to 
prominent personages. Some hotels, as it is very 
well known, more than countenance it ; many rail- 
ways permit card-playing for money ; and it is a 
familiar fact that Atlantic steamers have been made 
a rendezvous for sharpers, and that passengers are 
being constantly relieved of their cash by skillful 
manipulators. But what is even worse, in this 
country of ours, judges, lawyers, and juries have 
been known to wile away the hours between the 
sittings of court with the music of dice. They 
have spent a night of feverish excitement, and, 
with aching heads, have sought on the morrow to 
maintain the dignity of law. Gamblers, also, have 
aspired to Congress ; one or two professionals have 
secured seats there, and others of the same charac- 
ter have had a recognized influence in determining 
elections, and very likely are equally as potent 
still in partisan politics. In vain has England's 
Parliament, in the interest of coronets and broad 
acres, legislated against the plague ; for her princes 
yet cling to it and her judges yet apologize for 



174 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

it In vain has her government ordered that all 
betting, shops be closed in the metropolis ; for 
there, as here, men bet on every conceivable occa- 
sion and on every question concerning which there 
may be reasonable or unreasonable doubt, — on 
business, elections, the weather, the speed of trains, 
on life, on death, on the length of sermons, — on 
eveiything and anything that affords a pretext for 
a risk, senseless at best, to be taken. Also in vain 
did our Revolutionary sires in the Continental Con- 
gress urge the several States to take effectual 
measures against " horse-racing, gaming, and such 
other diversions as are productive of idleness, dis- 
sipation, and general depravity of principles and 
manners" ; and in vain have " the several States" 
faithfully followed this wholesome advice, for all 
over the land the thing condemned by law is toler- 
ated by social custom, and is practised in the most 
select circles, and at times in a quiet way by per- 
sons professing religion. 

Not a few publicists in America and Europe have 
been trying of late to ascertain whether this curse 
is abating or is on the increase. The data on 
either side are not decisive ; but enough can be 
gleaned from the various opinions expressed to 
cause the most optimistic to doubt. Chauncey M. 
Depew says : 

A considerable proportion of failures in business, and 
ninety per cent, of the defalcations and thefts and ruin of 
youths among people who are employed in places of trust, 
are due directly to gambling. I have seen, in my vast em- 
ployment, so much misery from the head of the family 
neglecting its support and squandering his earnings in the 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1/5 

lottery or the policy-shop, and promising young men led 
astray in a small way, and finally becoming fugitives or 
landing in the criminal dock, that I have come to believe 
that the community which licenses and tolerates public 
gambling cannot have prosperity in business, religion in its 
churches, or morality among its people. 

Remember he is speaking of our own times 
and not of a remote age with which we can have 
Httle in common. So, likewise, is the Philadelphia 
"Ledger" speaking of the present when it reports 
as follows : 

The amount of small peculations and larger stealings by 
bank clerks and others in positions of trust, is much greater 
than is generally known. The fact is evident from the re- 
port of a guarantee company which reports that in nineteen 
years it had insured the honesty of about one hundred and 
forty thousand officials, of whom over two thousand had 
defaulted. The report places the blame on the prevalence 
of gambling in its many forms. According to the testimony 
of Mr. Anthony Comstock, secretary of the Society for the 
Suppression of Vice, the enormous sum of two million eight 
hundred and ninety-eight thousand three hundred and 
seventy-two dollars was recorded as having been stolen in 
the year 1890 as the direct and acknowledged result of the 
gambling vice. The same society, in its last annual report, 
presented a long list of murders, suicides, and other crimes 
directly traceable to the same vice. 

In England, the "Christian World" has given to 
the public some very impressive opinions, gleaned 
from well-informed gentlemen, relative to the spread 
and the pernicious effect of this evil. I quote freely 
from the article referred to, as I am inclined to be- 
lieve that its statements are as applicable to Amer- 
ican as to English communities: "*I do not know 



176 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

that I can say positively that gambhng and betting 
have increased during the past few years,' said the 
chaplain of a London prison recently ; * I am in- 
clined, however, to think that it must be so, we 
have had so many instances of prisoners coming 
here in consequence of having involved themselves 
in inextricable difficulties by betting on horse- 
racing and robbing their employers to make good 
their losses. The number of post-office servants 
who come here, especially, has, I think, decidedly 
increased of late.' 

** * My strong impression is,' continued the prison 
chaplain, seated within the gloom of a prison filled 
to its utmost capacity, ' that the mischief is on the 
increase, but before I could very confidently ex- 
press any opinion upon the point I should require 
to investigate rather closely. I have noticed that 
in explaining the causes of their getting into trou- 
ble there is a kind of fashion among prisoners, 
changing from time to time. At one time, almost 
every prisoner would ascribe his getting into prison 
to drink. At another period infidelity would be 
the most frequent explanation, and now it is an 
extremely common thing for a prisoner to ascribe 
his ruin to losses in betting. But such statements 
are often made as a screen for something else, and 
because they are the usual thing. I should not 
base any opinion on them till I had carefully ex- 
amined their truth.' . . 

"There are more than fifty newspapers specially 
published in our midst for the dissemination of 
betting information, to say nothing of the sporting 
columns of the ordinary newspaper. ' Formerly,' 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1/7 

says a writer in the 'Quarterly Review,' 'bets were 
rarely made on the less important races, at all 
events, except on the course. But now the elec- 
tric telegraph has brought within reach of all the 
so-called sporting centers an immediate knowledge 
of the events of distant race courses ; consequently 
there has spread a system of "betting on the 
tape," which is pregnant with important results. 
The facility given to betting is enormous. A 
young man unable to go to the race-meeting has 
only to walk to a comfortable and well-furnished 
room on the ground floor of an accessible London 
house to find, not only the utmost consideration 
for his creature comforts, but also the fullest possi- 
ble information telegraphed up every five minutes 
from the course, and a bettor ready to bet against 
any horse running. . . Such a system is every 
whit as insidious as the public card-tables, which 
were once so productive of disaster.' " 

I think, likewise, some weight should be given 
to the comments of the " Christian Common- 
wealth" (London) on the facts set forth in a recent 
book by Wm. Hawke, entitled, "A Blot on the 
Queen's Reign ' : "Before 1844 not a single book- 
maker could get a living in Scotland, but now there 
are in one of its chief cities about a hundred at 
work every day. The press, the post office, and 
the telegraph all foster this hardening vice. At 
one time it was illegal to risk money in this coun- 
try by wager or play beyond a certain amount. 
By Act 9, Queen Anne, if any one gained over 
;^io by betting the loser was entitled to pursue 
for repayment of the stake if he had paid it. 

M 



178 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

By Act 18, George II., if any man were convicted 
of winning or losing by betting, ;^io at any one 
time, or ;^20 within twenty-four hours, he was to be 
fined five times the sum, for the benefit of the poor 
of the parish. The Statute of Anne was repealed 
in 1844. The result has blighted society. All 
sorts of legal complications have ensued, and the 
judicature of gambling is a chaos. The principle 
seems to rule that the little gambler is to be re- 
strained, the big one is to be let alone. Princes 
may gamble at baccarat, but gutter arabs playing 
at pitch-and-toss with pennies will be hunted by 
the first policeman who catches sight of them. 
Public sentiment has been corrupted by bad laws, 
so that better enactments will probably be very 
difficult to pass or to enforce. But public senti- 
ment must be educated to a better tone. There- 
fore the anti-gambling agitation must go on. It 
will succeed, but not very soon, for the national 
conscience has become seared during the last half- 
century as to this prodigious evil. If it were not 
so a bookmaker would not dare to show his face. 
The churches will have to lead an aggressive move- 
ment on this question, as well as on the question of 
intemperance." 

From these extracts I am persuaded the reader 
may gain a very fair idea of the proportions of the 
gambling infatuation and of some of the modifica- 
tions which have taken place in its methods. If 
in some places and in some respects improvements 
are observable, still it is clear that the mischief is 
virulent enough and in changing its form has not 
lost its venomed sting. If in one locality it has 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1/9 

been suppressed, it will be seen that it has broken 
out more violently in others ; and after a pause, it is 
more than likely that it will reappear where it pre- 
vailed originally, or will revive in some fresh de- 
vices or cheating schemes. 

One of its most alluring and common refuges, one 
of its most persistent and persuasive substitutes — 
if that can be called a substitute which is, in every 
essential, the same thing — is the lottery and the 
swindling dodges to which the lotteiy has given 
rise and after which many of them are patterned. 
This means of securing something for nothing, or 
for little more than nothing, is of ancient origin, 
being traced to the Romans ; but the first lottery 
of which we have authentic record was drawn in 
England at the door of St. Paul's Cathedral, Janu- 
ary II, 1569, and was continued until the 6th of 
May following. We read of another such scheme 
in the reign of James I. (1613), "in special favor 
for the plantation of English colonies in Virginia." 
This method of raising money was frequently re- 
sorted to during the Commonwealth ; but at last it 
became so apparently a source of public demoraliza- 
tion that, in 1699, a remarkable assault on its 
further adoption was published in tract form, under 
the quaint title, "Trial and Condemnation of 
Squire Lottery, alias Royal Oak Lottery, London." 
Among the other accusations brought against the 
criminal, we have the following : 

You, as a common enemy to all young people and an in- 
veterate hater of all good conversation and diversion have 
for many years past and do still continue, by certain cunning 
tricks and stratagems, insidiously, falsely, and impiously 



l80 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

to trespass, deceive, cheat, decoy, and entice ladies and 
gentlemen, citizens, apprentices, and others, to play away 
their money at manifest odds and disadvantages. By which 
means you have for many years last past utterly, entirely, 
and irrecoverably, contrary to all manner of justice, human- 
ity, or good nature, despoiled, depraved, and defrauded an 
incredible number of persons of every rank, age, and sex, 
of all their lands, goods, and effects ; and from the ruin of 
multitudes built fine houses and purchased large estates, to 
the great scandal and reflection on the wisdom of the nation 
for suffering such an intolerable impostor to pass unpunished. 

This caustic pamphlet recalls the fact that in 
the Arcadian period of American history the finan- 
cial interests of great enterprises were frequently- 
cared for through lotteries. Harvard College used 
this means of filling its treasury in 1794, and by 
the way did not escape the charge of *'foul play." 
In 181 1, the institution again appealed to chance 
for funds with, however, the following guaranty 
for integrity printed in the "Salem Gazette" : 

The serious evil which has fallen upon a great many ad- 
venturers by purchasing tickets in former lotteries and draw- 
ing blanks which were worth nothing appears now to be 
remedied. The managers of the fifth class of Harvard Col- 
lege lottery have in their wisdom taken the misery of this 
evil into consideration and have given us a scheme preferable 
to any former one, by which it seems that from twenty 
thousand dollars to fifty thousand dollars will be distributed 
among persons whose tickets are drawn blanks in this 
lottery, which commences drawing in a few days, and the 
greater part of the tickets are now sold. Whole and quarter 
tickets for sale at the bookstore and lottery office of Henry 
Whipple, No. 6 Wakefield Place. 

Faneuil Hall, which was destroyed by fire in 
1 76 1, was not rebuilt without the aid derived from 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING l8l 

this Species of gambling, concerning which the 
following dignified notice appeared in the prints of 
the day : 

The necessity of a large and convenient Hall in such a 
Town as this, upon all Public Occasions, can' t be disputed. 
The Rebuilding of Faneuil Hall has therefore been generally- 
approved of, and the Encouragement it will meet with from 
the Public will, we doubt not, be in some measure propor- 
tionably to its importance. We promise ourselves therefore 
a speedy sale of the tickets, and hope we shall soon be able 
to draw. 

Other objects were openly promoted by this 
nefarious and degrading method of raising money, 
such as the advancement of cotton manufacture in 
Beverly, for which four hundred shares in a lottery 
about to be drawn were granted. And when some 
murmured against this liberality, it was claimed in 
defense that '* the disposition of the government to 
foster our infant industries is certainly laudable." 
This was protection with a vengeance. No wonder 
that caricaturists represented society as a boat 
filled with men, women, and children fishing and 
that the humorist sang : 

In the fish-pond of fortune men angle always, 

Some angle for titles, some angle for praise, 

Some angle for favor, some angle for wives. 

And some angle for naught all the days of their lives ; 

Ye who' d angle for Wealth and would Fortunes obtain. 

Get your hooks baited by Kidder, Gilbert, and Dean. ' ' ^ 

These days have forever passed away in New 

'See "Curiosities of the Old Lottery," Henry M. Brooks, 
Salem, Mass. 



1 82 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

England, though it is to be feared that its people 
have not entirely abandoned the lottery habit in 
secret ; and the controversy in Louisiana regarding 
the perpetuity of its schemes for the support of the 
Commonwealth goes far to prove that it has not lost 
its grip on society. The legislators of that State 
who contemplated as possible the survival of an 
institution that has been a disgrace to every civiliza- 
tion that has countenanced it, surely could not 
have realized that its continuance means the educa- 
tion of the people in the wretched belief that they 
may expect something for nothing. Nevertheless, 
this is its effect and thus it tends not only to poverty 
but to the breeding of impecuniousness and dis- 
content. Nothing can be more fatal to industrious 
habits than the impression that wealth can be 
achieved in a shorter way than by faithful toil of 
head or hand and most likely can be secured by a 
happy turn of the Wheel of Fortune. And yet the 
probability of attaining one's expectations by this 
method has been estimated as being about one in 
seventy thousand chances. The speculator could 
hardly have less prospect of recovering his cash 
were he to cast it into the streets. Nevertheless, 
only a few years ago over three hundred and fifty 
shops in New York were devoted to this nefarious 
business. How many are engaged in it now I 
cannot tell, but very likely more than are suspected 
by the police, and probably enough to show how 
vast are the multitudes who are patrons of some 
kind of mercantile gambling. 

Of a similar character to these schemes are the 
gift enterprises which originated in England (17 14) 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 83 

and were carried to such a point of villainy that 
they had to be suppressed, and were, by act of 
Queen Anne ; and then, of course, were trans- 
planted to this country, where the cast-off ''fakes'' 
of the Old World are received and naturalized. 
There have been no end of specious plans set in 
operation here by which benevolent souls could 
confer on others something for nothing. At one 
time it was a prize — a house, horse, or ass, or 
something that was our neighbors' — to be made 
over to the purchaser who, with his purchased 
goods, should obtain a lucky number ; then it was 
a piece of jewelry deftly hidden in a box of candy, 
and the purchaser, who was sure to be poisoned, 
might be enriched by a trifle in gold or silver ; and 
then it was some wonderful contrivance by which 
every one who bought one article was to receive 
in addition another, and surpassing the first in 
value, though it never can be explained why the 
first, in these circumstances, should have been sold 
at all. Persons ready to be duped by such ap- 
parent frauds are naturally drawn to the support of 
other humbugs. To "the seventh daughter of the 
seventh daughter" are they impelled by their greed 
— to that mysterious female who has the resources 
of nature at her disposal, and who can make any 
one rich, but who, for some unaccountable reason 
lives in filth, up three flights of rickety stairs, 
down a malodorous alley. Or they are easily fas- 
cinated by the happy owner of what is called a 
"winning modus," or a "mascot," by which the 
successful horse or triumphant yacht can be surely 
chosen in advance ; and who ought himself to out- 



184 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

vie the Vanderbilts and Astors in wealth, but who 
prefers to abide in seediness and seamy poverty. 
Though these individuals are transparent sharpers, 
they have a clientele. So countless is the army of 
those who are sure that, by some trick of fortune, 
out of nothing can something be coined, that these 
disreputable impostors are maintained, if not in 
comfort, still in laziness. The source and ground 
of their support is to be found in the voracious 
greed of average humanity, which fools itself into 
the belief that, from a cipher, standing alone, can 
bewildering totals of figures be deduced ; and, 
consequently, is prepared to be hoodwinked and 
fooled by the shallowest scamp in Christendom. 

But when all this has been said, we have only 
touched the boundary line of the gambling empire. 
It reaches far beyond these strongholds and cita- 
dels of its power, and embraces entire provinces 
which are usually supposed to fly very different 
flags. Multitudes of people who lift up their hands 
in holy horror at the throwing of dice and the 
shuffling of cards are yet numbered with the 
mighty host which unblushingly acknowledges its 
citizenship in this kingdom of darkness. Business, 
as at present conducted, seems to have been per- 
verted into a colossal gaming-table, around which 
are gathered inveterate players, who are seeking to 
get ahead of each other, and with not overmuch 
conscience in the play. If the comparison is re- 
garded as far-fetched and extreme, let it be put to 
the test of facts. Consider how little business is 
really done along legitimate lines, and how rarely a 
buyer can rely on a seller's estimate of his goods, 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 85 

and how rarely the buyer himself is willing to pay 
for the goods what he thinks they are worth. Both 
parties to the transaction seem determined to get 
the better of each other, and so, in the end, secure 
apportion of the article sold or of the money spent, 
for nothing. Observe, also, the adulterations and 
the misrepresentations of trade, which render it 
next to impossible to tell what you eat or what you 
wear, and the flaming advertisements of staple 
articles to be sold for twenty-five per cent, below 
cost of production ; and then say whether it does 
not appear that many dealers are playing their 
game against the public with loaded dice. 

Moreover, the insane whirl and rush of specula- 
tion, the popularity of "futures," of ''puts and 
calls," of ** options" — the rouge et noir of com- 
merce — the betting on red or black, combined with 
the manipulation of values in stocks and bonds 
and the issue of bonds that have no value, or, at 
the best, only a contingent and remote value — all 
go to show how thoroughly business has become 
impregnated with the spirit of hazard, and how the 
principle of "heads or tails" has as much to do 
with its progress as sound judgment. And this 
maelstrom of stock-exchanges has power to draw 
into its whirling eddy not a few persons of avowed 
conservatism and integrity. With all the progress 
made by the religion of Christ, there is not enough 
of it in the average American community to pre- 
serve its professors from the greed that leads to 
ventures of chance and to trials of luck. 

Having extolled the business idea as the govern- 
■ ing idea of the age, and having debased it by the 



I 86 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

gambling mania, it has been applied, in many in- 
stances, to the support of Christianity^ — gambling 
mania and all. Some of the churches have come 
to speculate even in their clerg}^men. The ques- 
tion often foremost when a pastor is being called 
is, Will he pay? Of course it is not propounded 
in this shockingly plain manner, but it underlies 
much that passes in committee. That this consid- 
eration is frequently paramount may be proven by 
the fact that more ministers are unsettled because 
current expenses run behind than for any other 
cause ; and by the other fact, that no pastor in a 
modern pulpit, if a pecuniar}- success, has ever to 
my knowledge been removed on account of heresy, 
or for the manifest neglect of parochial duties. I 
question if any congregation in Christendom would 
take action against a clerg}'man who brings plenty 
of hard cash into the Lord's treasury without bur- 
dening the brethren, and has crowds to hear him, 
even though he never has had a convert and never 
has cared for the sick or dying. His eccentricities 
may border on irreverence, and his habits on world- 
liness, and his conduct on self-conceited boorish- 
ness ; yet, if he only stops short of immorality as 
defined by conventional canons, and increases the 
pew rents, he will be tolerated by the saints who 
seem inchned to beheve that, ecclesiastically, "gain 
is godliness." 

This condition of things is a frightful snare to 
the minister. The poor fellow, vaguely realizing 
the mercenar}^ standard by which he is to be tried, 
will be in danger of forgetting his mission to com- 
fort the afflicted, reclaim the wayward, instruct the 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 8/ 

ignorant, lift up the oppressed, and maintain the 
cause of the friendless. His fearlessness may de- 
part and his lips may learn smooth things, lest 
some money magnate may be offended, or some 
aristocratic sister be alienated because he dares 
plead too eloquently for human equality before the 
tribunal of God. What does it matter if souls are 
converted and the fallen rescued, if the coffers of 
Zion are depleted ? What if it does not pay in 
the cold coin of this world ? Something must be 
done — the business brethren have said so — some- 
thing ; but what ? Aye, that is the question. 
Charlatan methods ; Sunday night concerts, with 
the humiliating assurance that there will be very 
little preaching ; spicy lectures on current events ; 
a succession of thinly disguised theatricals on week- 
days — anything — anything diverting, attracting, 
sensational — to increase the revenues. And then, 
if the speculation still fails to pay, if the stock of 
the unfortunate preacher does not rise, bickerings 
and mutterings, and in the end a vacant pulpit and 
not improbably a broken, if not a broken-hearted, 
servant of the living God. 

And during all this striving for worldly prosper- 
ity the great unchurched masses look on sadly and 
somewhat scornfully. They too come to ask the 
question propounded by ecclesiastical officials. 
Will it pay ? And seeing what they sefe, multi- 
tudes of them answer: "It may, who knows? 
Christianity may be what it claims ; who can tell ? 
We, at least, will not try to settle the issue ; we 
will take our chances." And thus, indirectly but 
surely, sordid congregations intensify the gambling 



1 88 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

mania until it reaches the terrible climax where the 
soul's eternal interests are recklessly staked and 
risked. One man plays against time and deceives 
himself into the expectation that to-morrow will 
be better than to-day for the purpose of religious 
preparation ; and he thinks he has calculated so 
closely that he is sure not to lose to-morrow. But 
time is a deadly antagonist and he who plays with 
him plays a losing game. Another matches him- 
self against him.self, is like one who seeks recrea- 
tion in cards by himself alone and arrays one hand 
against the other. He sets his good works over 
against his evil works, and trusts that, in the end, 
the latter may predominate and prove the winning 
card. And yet there are others who give no atten- 
tion to sacred things, and who boldly say that they 
will take their chances. Though Christ has died 
for them, and though millions have been com- 
forted by his presence and power, and though the 
influence of Christianitv has vindicated its claims, 
yet these misguided men are ready to take the 
odds that, somehow and som.ewhere, they will be 
qualified for heaven without ever taking thought 
for the subject in the present life. They keep re- 
iterating, *' God will give ever}^ one a chance," and 
apparently oblivious to the fact that the chance is 
now and may never be again, they drift onward, 
blindly trusting that the possible will become the 
certain. I can only compare these infatuated mor- 
tals to men who gamble, knowing that the cards 
used by their adversaries are marked, or to those 
who invest all their capital in bonds that have not 
on their face even the promise to pay. Blondin 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 89 

preferred, for his own reasons, to cross Niagara on 
a wire rope, when he could safely have trudged 
over the suspension bridge. The risk was tre- 
mendous, but he succeeded. But more serious by 
far the determination to cross the chasm that sepa- 
rates this world from the other on the finely spun 
hope — the airy nothing — of modern speculation, 
with only the balancing pole of presumption and 
assurance to preserve the soul from the abyss of 
despair. Better and safer the way of salvation by 
which time and eternity are joined together, — the 
only way, Christ Jesus, — in which, if a man be 
found, he shall perish no more forever. 

I am more than convinced that the present ex- 
tent of the gambling infatuation and the failure to 
take adequate measures for its repression are due 
to the blindness of the public to its despicable 
character and to its baleful influence on the high- 
est interests of society, and therefore a few words 
on these points may be useful to all, and espe- 
cially to the young man who is in danger of falling 
a victim to its seductions. 

During an extended sojourn in Europe (1891), 
I spent some weeks in Nice ; and being near that 
most noted of all gambling communities, Monaco, 
I determined to visit its gilded casino and observe 
for myself the operations of the evil which, next 
to intemperance, has caused more deaths and more 
misery than all other forms of wrong-doing. The 
place is delightfully situated on the shores of the 
Mediterranean, whose sapphire waters gleam like a 
precious stone in an earthly setting of exquisite 
beauty. It would seem as though nature and art 



190 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

had combined to impart the Protean forms of se- 
duction to the fatal spot. There the richest flow- 
ers sweeten the balmy air with their perfume- 
breathing ; there the buildings display the most 
delicate fancies of the architect and contribute to 
the fairy-like fascination of the scene ; and there 
music, with all the witcheries of harmony and all 
the lulling strains of melody, hushes the turbulent 
and troublous conscience to repose, and sounds to 
the weary ear in welcome tones, 

Blander than those by which the Thracian Orpheus 
Charmed listening forests. 

All shadows are softened there, not even men- 
dicancy being permitted to show its rags and affright 
the fools of fortune ; and there no jarring noise of 
vulgar commerce and no turmoil of political con- 
tention are permitted to disturb the dream which, 
before the waking comes, melts into another dream. 
Illusion appears to have built its palace on the 
margin of a sea that is itself as placid as a painted 
flood ; the grounds and gardens are so fair as to 
resemble the phantom of lost paradise ; the people 
even have an elusive look, and smiles that are, of 
all things, least real and that come and go as 
frightened memories of dead hopes ; and terraced 
heights, impurpled rocks, glistening olive trees, and 
princely castle on its dizzy crest of granite — bathed 
as they are in resplendent sunshine which shimmers 
in the very atmosphere — share in the general as- 
pect of unsubstantial and phantasmagorial exist- 
ence. And yet here, in this enchanted land, the 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING I9I 

serpent, green and shiny, coils, whose venom is not 
a phantasm of poison ; and here, in these gorgeous 
and brilHant-hued woods and glades, where color 
charms the eye and melody the ear, death lurks at 
every turn, and cries and groans of sinking souls 
make horrible the day ; for here greed vanquishes 
every noble impulse ; here indolence that enervates 
and palsies society recruits its life ; and here waste- 
fulness, that pauperizes kings and nations, holds 
high revel and murders while it riots. 

Let us pass the portals of the luxurious casino, 
over which might well be written, ** He who enters 
here leaves hope behind " ; for it is only beneath 
the roof where gambling maintains its solemn state 
that an adequate idea can be formed of its tyran- 
nous seductiveness. Our reception is courteous. 
Passport, or letter of credit, accompanied by a 
visiting card, suffices for introduction. No incon- 
venient questions are asked ; and whether you are 
prince or bishop, your application for admission 
will excite no wonder. A large and elegant apart- 
ment is entered, where decorous silence reigns, in- 
terrupted only — if interruption it can be called — 
by the croupier's rake, the motion of the little 
balls on the roulette tables, the scratching of pen- 
cils, and occasionally by an almost inaudible ex- 
pression of surprise or of chagrin. Around the 
various centers of play numbers of people are 
seated, while others are anxiously waiting for 
places to be vacated ; and frequently some who are 
standing lean over and put stakes side by side 
with those that are being risked by persons more 
eligibly situated. Almost any group will serve as 



192 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

a study of all the varied groups scattered through 
the different rooms. Old men and young men are 
there, and individuals of the highest station and of 
the most honored names. Rich commoners, how- 
ever, are not lacking ; but undoubtedly many are 
there who do not belong to the wealthy class and 
are desperately venturing the little that they have 
on the turn of fortune's wheel. The average face 
is not intellectual, and it is not real. Every player 
seems to wear a mask, and to be at pains, beneath 
an expressionless countenance, to conceal the emo- 
tions of the soul. Occasionally a gleam of tri- 
umph will flash for a moment from some dull eye 
and fade as swiftly ; and in another, one may read 
the leaden hopelessness of a soul punctured 
through and through with repeated disappoint- 
ments. While every one assumes an air of placidity, 
and while external calm is one of the most conspic- 
uous qualities of the gamesters, it is not difficult to 
discern signs of suppressed excitement, like a vol- 
cano stifled but not extinguished by a heavy cover- 
ing of frozen snow ; and rarely will the habitue be 
met, whose polished elegance betokens the man of 
golden resources, whose manner indicates that he 
has spent his years amid "■ the roses and raptures 
of vice," who has permitted none to enslave him, 
not even the love of gambling, and who, with 
affable cynicism, condemns his weak companions 
and likens himself to Codrus, standing unshaken 
"amidst a bursting world." 

Instances are not wanting, and, indeed, are suf- 
ficiently frequent to be one of the commonplaces 
of the institution, of gentlemen, after prolonged 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 93 

ill-luck, apparently a trifle wearied and worn and 
haggard-looking from the mental strain, wandering 
forth beneath the silent stars, and there, on the 
margin of the sea, tragically ending a wasted life. 
A pistol shot, whose sound is heard but is not 
heeded within the gilded halls, and then an effort 
to remove the body from the neighborhood of the 
casino, that blame for the melancholy act may not 
attach to its pursuits ; a hurried funeral, or a 
wooden box hastily dispatched to a distant city ; 
and a vacant chair invites another victim to ruin 
and despair. What I have said of men applies in 
a general way to women, with the exception that 
they rarely, if ever, commit suicide at Monte 
Carlo. It is not an assuring spectacle — these dames 
and dowagers, these maids and mothers, sitting for 
hours betting on red or black, or on favorite num- 
bers, and following the varying phases of fortune 
with a hungry intensity that pinches their features 
and that imparts a cat-like expression to their eyes. 
And yet the scene is not an extraordinary one. I 
saw quite a number of society ladies deeply im- 
mersed in the eccentric decisions of ball or card, 
and evidently quite indifferent to the criticism of 
serious people on their conduct. Their habits do 
not exclude them from the social world of Europe, 
unless they are rather too unconventional in their 
methods ; and opinions unfavorable to them from 
other sources they treat with silent disdain, as pro- 
ceeding from straight-laced or hypocritical pietists. 
Attempts to bring them to a sense of their un- 
womanly position would doubtless lead to the re- 
tort that American women gamble in America, not 

N 



194 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

SO publicly as Europeans, possibly, but as ardently 
and as persistently, though not always so honor- 
ably. To such a rejoinder, I apprehend, no really 
defensible disclaimer could be entered ; for it is 
merely a fiction of American chivalry that assumes 
the absolute freedom of the gentler sex, born and 
bred in the States, from the vices of tippling, gam- 
ing, and intriguing frailty. 

Some things worth remembering I learned dur- 
ing my visit to Monaco. I gathered from reliable 
sources that the total income from the tables is 
about eight hundred thousand pounds sterling per 
annum, or, in our money, about four millions of 
dollars ; and the regularity of the revenue and the 
satisfaction of the shareholders in the Casino Com- 
pany prove incontestably that the "chances" are 
in favor of the "bank," and that it must eventu- 
ally be the winner. For though the players may 
occasionally score a remarkable run of luck, they 
have only to play long enough for the " bank " not 
only to recover its losses, but to get the better of 
them in the end. A Mr. Robert Peel tells how he 
won i^5,ooo at the tables ; but an English paper 
explains how it came to pass that he did not imme- 
diately lose everything : "A report had gone forth 
that by a few lucky coups, he won ;^ 12,000, but 
plunging again in the hope of increasing his gains, 
he had lost all his previous winnings. This, how- 
ever, is not the case. He did, it is true, after mak- 
ing up his mind to play no more, and even taking 
his ticket to London, return to the gambling rooms 
and lose every penny upon which he was able to 
lay his hands, including that portion of his original 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 95 

winnings which he had banked in Monte Carlo ; 
but, luckily for him, he had been induced in the 
first flush of his prosperity to hand over ;^5,ooo to 
one of his friends, and to give that gentleman 
power to bank it in his own name, so that it should 
not be available to its real owner even when con- 
sumed by the passion of the gambler. But for this 
forethought Mr. Peel would doubtless, in the end, 
have not left the tables a winner. His story should 
teach a lesson to all who imagine that they are 
likely to get the better of the bank, which always 
wins in the long run." 

One exception to this rule we have in the follow- 
ing story ; but it is one that proves how great a curse 
seems to attend money gained unlawfully : " Ed- 
mund Yates tells of a seedy looking man who went 
into a gambling saloon in Paris and won five hundred 
thousand francs. He quietly left the table, went 
out and bought some good clothes and had a good 
dinner. Then he returned to the gambling place, 
where he was enthusiastically welcomed, as all the 
gamblers expected that he would lose all he had 
won. He stayed four hours at the table, but, in 
spite of all invitations he did not risk a five-franc 
piece. Habitues who know what the passion of 
gaming is couldn't explain it, but they finally had 
their judgment vindicated when the news came that 
the lucky gambler had gone through his fortune in 
drink and had died of want." 

But as though these reverses following success 
were not enough, the newspapers are chronicling 
another peril now infesting Monte Carlo : " A 
visitor recently detected his lost pocketbook, full 



196 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

of notes, sticking out of the pocket of a thief who 
was making off, and in his hurry had not suffi- 
ciently secreted it. The man was promptly handed 
over to the police and conveyed to Nice for trial. 
On being searched, fourteen pocketbooks and 
twelve letters containing three hundred thousand 
francs — twelve thousand pounds — were found upon 
him. Is it not high time this den of thieves, swin- 
dlers, — which many of the gamblers are said to be, — 
and foolish spendthrifts was done away with ? Not- 
withstanding, alas ! all the strong things said against 
this abomination, the proprietors have been stead- 
ily increasing their gains and netted last year no 
less than eight hundred and forty thousand pounds." 
The largest sum won in the season of 1890 at 
Monaco was thirty-eight thousand pounds, and the 
successful man was a Roumanian, who lost it again, 
and more too in a little while ; recalling the story 
of a Russian prince who pocketed more than that 
amount at Homburg, and then was so unfortunate 
that he had to borrow means to pay his expenses 
home. These instances go to show the fatality 
that attends the efforts of those who strive to break 
the bank. Unquestionably the game is conducted 
always in a fair and square manner ; for it would 
not be other than financially disastrous to be guilty 
of cheating ; but the law of chances and the limi- 
tation of stakes to a maximum are inevitably against 
the individual and in favor of the ** administra- 
tion." I was told that many persons have a ** sys- 
tem " to which they adhere and by which they 
hope finally to succeed against the strong box of 
their adversary. Indeed, you can purchase book- 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 9/ 

lets in Nice and at Monte Carlo which furnish you 
with such a "system" in excruciating French and 
worse EngHsh, by which you can carry off endur- 
ing spoil. These pamphlets cost a franc, and are 
dirt cheap if they enable one to do what they say ; 
but there is an ugly rumor afloat that they are 
countenanced by the '* administration," so that 
new pigeons to be plucked may be entrapped ; and 
there is not a particle of evidence that they were 
ever of value to any one. In the grounds a visitor 
will occasionally pick up a curiously pricked card 
which had been cast aside by some disappointed 
gambler who has been experimenting on a pet 
scheme of his own and who has recorded the re- 
sults of his unsatisfactory performance. When 
several extraordinary successes were scored last 
year, they were immediately attributed to a syndi- 
cate working a fine plan devised by a Frenchman, 
and the authorities were themselves suspicious that 
the two millions of francs lost resulted from a com- 
bination, though the parties most interested on the 
other side of the transaction disavowed any sys- 
tematic co-operation. But the discussion indicates 
that there is a latent expectation that some invent- 
ive genius will be able to so master the law of 
chances as to render him superior to fortune ; and 
though there is not the least reason for supposing 
such an achievement possible, the friends of hu- 
manity might well hail it with delight ; for the dis- 
covery of a ''system" that would assure uniform 
or ultimate success to a gambler, without cheating, 
would necessarily put an end to gambling alto- 
gether. 



198 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

One thing is very obsen^able in Monaco ; that 
is, the absence of intemperance. I presume it is 
one of the soberest communities on the face of the 
earth, and will compare favorably with any prohi- 
bition town. One all-absorbing passion in this 
place prevents the growth of any other. Sobriety 
may properly be termed the virtue of gambling — 
its only virtue. Of course there are wine shops 
within the limits of the territory, and they are 
invitingly open ; but as access would disqualify for 
successful attention to what is the exclusive indus- 
tr}^ of the principality — if that may be called an 
industry that creates no wealth and breeds idle- 
ness — the people drink sparingly and, I presume, 
of the least heady kind of wines, proving conclu- 
sively that drunkenness, even where liquors are ac- 
cessible, is not an uncontrollable fatality of human 
nature. 

This picture of Monaco, which I have aimed to 
paint without exaggeration of outline or excess of 
color, discloses the characteristic evils of the mania 
I am discussing in its various forms ; and these may 
well be classified and specified to assist those young 
people who, through lack of discernment, may 
otherwise fail to appreciate their salutaiy warning. 

A little reflection will, I am sure, make it clear 
in view of all that has been advanced in this Mes- 
sage, that when something is sought to be acquired 
for nothing, a greater price is really paid than the 
something is worth. This is not usually suspected, 
and yet it is one of the most transparent of all the 
maleficent features of the social bane we are con- 
sidering, It costs ; it is exacting ; it will not con- 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 1 99 

sent to be enjoyed except on the most unreason- 
able and impoverishing terms. First of all, money 
must be risked, though the player confidently ex- 
pects, after some possible vicissitudes, to receive it 
back with considerable sums in addition, for v/hich 
he has given no equivalent ; but really there is no 
reasonable prospect of his ever being put in pos- 
session again of his original investment. As a rule 
— and the rule has fewer exceptions than any other 
rule — what he hazards he loses, and instead of get- 
ting something for nothing, even in hard cash, he 
is continually giving something for nothing, and of 
that more too than he ever supposed at the start he 
would dare venture. 

Dr. Jeter wrote in 1842, that ''probably more 
than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was 
annually lost in Richmond by gambling, and much 
of this amount by clerks at the expense of their 
employers." It is related of Hunyady, the Hun- 
garian count, that he won upward of two millions, 
and was considered the most fortunate of men ; 
and yet he ultimately gambled this vast amount 
away and his private resources as well. Fox, the 
notable parliamentary leader, beggared himself 
through the same means, and nearly seven hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars left him by Lord Hol- 
land was sacrificed to this folly. Some of the high- 
est names in the British peerage could be cited in 
evidence of the fatal termination of this madness, 
so far as landed estates and abundant wealth are 
concerned. But the story becomes monotonous, 
so unvarying is the denoume^it, and its mere repeti- 
tion is unnecessary to conviction. 



200 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

There is, however, one department or form of the 
evil where the results are generally supposed to be 
more satisfactory, and to that it is worth our while to 
look for a few moments. The impression prevails 
that extensive winnings are frequent on Boards of 
trade, and that speculations in stock, wheat, corn, 
and general provisions are usually successful. This, 
I am persuaded, is an illusion. Large operators — 
and those especially who, so to speak, compose " the 
bank" — at times unquestionably do coin much 
money by their transactions ; but the smaller deal- 
ers, and especially those persons who buy and sell at 
a distance from the market, in the end are usually 
plucked and ruined. If an individual is successful 
in this field of commercial hazard a score of others 
will plunge into the whirlpool, and in a little while 
will be squeezed dry, that their golden juices may 
be absorbed by some unctuous millionaire. The 
one instance of success is bruited abroad, while the 
innumerable failures are lost sight of and kept from 
the public, just as the dead body of a gamester is 
hurried to its grave as quickly as possible at Monte 
Carlo, to prevent unpleasant reflections. Let indi- 
viduals who think of venturing their earnings in 
speculations which, whatever they may represent 
to the brokers, are merely games of chance to the 
speculators themselves, remember that they are at 
the mercy of men who may have capital enough 
to corner the market, that their own brokers may 
tamper with their deals, and that even " bucket 
shops" and penniless shouters on the street may 
influence prices to their undoing. I would have 
them consider the odds that are against them before 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 201 

they invest, and calculate the probabilities of their 
coming out of the transaction with cash or credit. 

My own opinion is that the probabilities in their 
favor are about as good as those which character- 
ized some recent "wildcat" schemes prevalent in 
Boston. Accounts of these, published in one of 
our great dailies (May, 1891), form a chapter of in- 
structive though melancholy reading. I shall not 
pretend to recite the story in full, for I am appre- 
hensive that the public is more painfully familiar 
with its details than I am. It is, I presume, only 
necessary to mention the " Bond Companies," 
chartered, I believe, mainly under New Hampshire 
laws, and the "Endowment Orders," for many 
people in New England to recognize former ac- 
quaintances that imposed somewhat on their confi- 
dence. Certificates were issued, guaranteeing a 
definite sum by a certain day, say six months after 
date, and for which assessments far below the value 
to be received were to be paid in instalments. If 
conducted fairly, according to prospectus, an in- 
vestment of thirty-seven dollars would yield fifty 
dollars in six months. But the company was 
tricky ; ten assessments were called in two weeks, 
and to meet the demands and save something, 
fifty-seven dollars had to be given in exchange for 
fifty dollars. Poor girls, and they numbered hun- 
dreds, were unable to pay the assessments, and 
either lost their little savings or sold out to brokers 
for a song. I am not going to arraign these young 
men and women as "sinners above all other sin- 
ners" ; for they are no worse than our magnates, 
who do as they did, only on a larger scale and 



202 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

with more intelligent apprehension of what it 
means ; but I would once more remind them that 
as they, in the transaction described, were trying 
to get something for nothing, they ought not to be 
too hard on their deceivers, who were simply doing 
the same thing, and ought at once to conclude that 
all their efforts in this direction, as they are con- 
trary to sound principles of trade, must prove dis- 
astrous, if not disgraceful. 

Although I have laid stress on the money sacri- 
fices involved in every kind of gambling, there are 
others of a more serious nature that can scarcely 
be avoided. I refer to the effect such pursuits 
have on the intellect, the conscience, and, indeed, 
on the entire character. Few persons, I presume, 
will deny that they tend to unfit and disqualify for 
industrial vocations. Faro-loving lawyers, doctors, 
mechanics, and merchants soon discover that they 
cannot apply themselves to the ordinary business 
of life ; and if they keep up a show of interest in 
the dull, stupid thing, it is merely that the com- 
munity may not discount their respectability. And 
thus brain-power and hand-skill are frittered away, 
yield no profit, and add nothing to the world's 
wealth. 

But worse even than this, the fearful mania of 
which I complain makes insidious inroads on in- 
tegrity. As I write these words a youth is being 
tried in the New York courts on the charge of 
embezzlement, committed for the purpose of pay- 
ing betting obligations. We all know that trust 
funds, public and private, have been piled up on the 
green cloth, to disappear in the insatiable coffers of 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 203 

the dealer, or have been handed over to the broker to 
cover the demand for margin, and that a year never 
passes without shortage in some one's accounts and 
consequent wretchedness and poverty to blameless 
widows and orphans. These reputable rascals, ac- 
cording to their own version of their conduct, 
meant wrong to no one, intended to return the 
sums "borrowed," and, if profoundly pharisaical, 
will even intimate — though a wicked world vv^ill not 
believe it — that they were really seeking to increase 
the fortunes entrusted to their care for the sake of 
the owners. They all confess that they were led 
too far ; that former successes emboldened them to 
too hazardous ventures, and that they are sorry, so 
sorry — God only knows how sorrowful ! — to be 
found out. Nor does the mischief end here. The 
affection for cards, dice, options, futures, and the 
rest, has a fatal influence on the reason, beclouding 
and prostrating, and fostering superstition. Gam- 
blers are not only the most suspicious of men, 
they are the most irrational as well. They are 
firm believers in what they call 'Tuck," and in the 
possibility of its being thwarted by getting out of 
bed in a particular manner, or by a cat or a pig 
crossing their path, or by catching a glimpse of 
the new moon over the left or right shoulder. A 
writer in the "Spectator," referring to lotteries, 
says : " I know a well-meaning man who is pleased 
to risk his good fortune upon the number ' i/ii,' 
because it is the year of our Lord. I have been 
told of a certain zealous dissenter who, being a 
great enemy to popery, and believing that bad 
men are the most fortunate in this world, will lay 



204 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

two to one on the number * 666 ' against any- 
other, because it is the number of the Beast. Sev- 
eral would prefer the number 12,000 before any 
other, as it is the number of the pounds in the great 
prize." 

These puerilities, or kindred ones, are sure al- 
ways to appear whenever men and women have 
surrendered common sense to greed, and are rely- 
ing on " chance " to increase their worldly posses- 
sions. An illustration of the fact that superstition 
does not end with out-and-out gamesters was af- 
forded me by an erratic acquaintance who formerly 
speculated on the New York Stock Exchange. 
He told m.e that the market had gone steadily 
against a certain line of railroad securities in which 
he had been speculating heavily, and that he saw 
himself on the eve of bankruptcy. His brokers 
advised him to close his deal at once, but he stub- 
bornly refused. He went to his hotel, knowing 
that the morning would make or unmake him 
quite, and before he retired to bed he prayed — 
prayed, though his success would seriously injure 
others. During the night he awoke suddenly, and 
there, inscribed in phosphorescent light, he saw on 
the wall " Rock Island " — I believe — and the 
amount the bonds of that road would sell for next 
day. He rubbed his eyes to convince himself of 
the reality, and being satisfied with its genuineness 
he was not ''disobedient to the heavenly vision," 
but rushed to Wall Street and bought on margin 
all that he could at the first quotations, to the 
amazement of his brokers ; and then, when the 
turn in the tide came, he sold, sold, sold, and 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 205 

realized fabulous sums. How much he cleared 
through this divine interposition I never knew, and 
I never liked to ask him, for he was — to put it ten- 
derly — not very wealthy when I knew him, rather 
otherwise, if the truth must be told. 

Integrity and intelligence make up a pretty ex- 
travagant price to pay for a possible something ; 
and I cannot conceive of anything compensating 
for such a sacrifice. Think how little probability 
there is of money risked on the various methods of 
tempting fortune ever coming back, and how cer- 
tainly such hazardous ventures demoralize and de- 
base ; and then decide whether longer to tolerate 
this terrible crime against humanity. But should 
not this statement of the case adequately deter 
you from further tampering with this pernicious 
evil, I would seek to arrest your downward progress 
by meeting you on the ground of your hoped-for 
success, and prove to you that the something you 
may obtain for nothing, will itself turn out to be 
nothing, or, at most, something very different from 
what was bargained for. 

Large sums of money have undoubtedly been 
realized by skillful and persevering players ; and 
professional gamblers — those who keep the bank 
and manipulate the game — have often advertised, 
by blazing diamonds and resplendent watch-chains, 
that they are the favored minions of fortune. They 
have likewise been able to furnish their homes 
luxuriously, drive fine horses, and have indulged in 
various expensive habits. Some of the handsom- 
est private residences I have seen have been owned 
by these gentry ; and when these men are prosper- 



206 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

ous they have the reputation of being extremely- 
generous. The money comes easily, and easily it 
goes ; and servants, waiters, and acquaintances 
have often good reason for admiring the liberality 
of these somewhat disreputable personages. A 
notorious Greek, named Garcia, at Homburg, 
played so remarkably that he broke the bank five 
times and won in all ;^70,ooo (three hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars) ; and what was even more 
wonderful, he locked up his profits and abandoned 
the dangerous place. This, surely, is an encourag- 
ing instance. He had not only sought but had se- 
cured something for nothing ; and why should not 
he be imitated ? Well ; only let us not be too 
hasty in following his example ; for there is a sequel 
to this amazing success. Garcia returned to Hom- 
burg within a year and resumed his seat at the fas- 
cinating table, and in a little over a week, had lost 
all that he had won, and a million francs besides. 
He then hurried to Paris, sold his property, and 
was back again in a very short time, and squan- 
dered all his wealth, and ended his career in beg- 
gary. In his case, assuredly, the something he had 
won was not much, after all, and turned out to be 
worse than nothing. 

And these palaces and gorgeous trappings and 
elaborate and elegant surroundings which reward 
successful play are rarely, if ever, permanent posses- 
sions. ''Whose house is that? " inquired a gentle- 
man of an acquaintance. " It was built by a regu- 
lar blackleg, who carried on his nefarious business 
in one of the richly furnished rooms ; but he over- 
reached himself, and it is now owned by an honest 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 20/ 

fellow who began life as a teamster." Such inves- 
tigations lead to strange revelations. At one time, 
a row of office buildings and a handsome residence 
stood in the name of a prominent board-of-trade 
operator ; but they are no longer his. They came 
through a happy deal, and he at once imagined 
himself a "Napoleon of finance" ; and they de- 
parted on the wings of another deal, not quite so 
** happy," except for the other party. The only 
way, apparently to avoid this relapse is to deed the 
property to one's wife ; though safety is not even 
guaranteed by this method, as the wife may take to 
speculating on her own account, or may fritter 
away the estate on feminine extravagancies. A 
curse always seems to rest on wealth not acquired 
by legitimate means ; and if it does not disappear 
at once, it apparently continues that the final col- 
lapse may be more calamitous, involving in some 
way the disgrace of the family, often accomplished 
by the reckless dissipation of the sons. 

My dear young men, do not be sure that you 
have affluence, when you have it, unless you came 
to have it by honest endeavors. Do you see the 
seedy fellows yonder, in front of the gilded saloon, 
trying to look as though they never knew care and 
were never anxious about money? They were 
once successful gamblers ; but the inevitable tide 
turned against them and they are now *' ropers 
in," "decoys," and what not, betraying others for 
gain and hoping against hope to permanently better 
their condition. There are other figures moving 
about in society as melancholy and as instructive 
as these, though not always as easily recognizable. 



208 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



I refer to those who scored a slight success in lot- 
tery gambling, and who have spent all they ever 
gained, and more too, in vain pursuit of the princi- 
pal prize. They live in dreams, pondering what 
they will do when they are fabulously rich, and in 
the expectation of future pleasures overlook their 
wretched lodgings, their dilapidated garments and 
miserable food. Their highest present delight is 
found in reading of ''drawings," and in imagining 
how they would feel were the millions to come to 
them ; and so they drag out their existence, grow- 
ing poorer, thinner, weaker, until at last they 
shrivel and wither away. On their tombs may be 
written : "The lottery shops that knew them know 
them no more." Such pathetically puerile charac- 
ters as these are living warnings of the havoc greed 
is sure to work, and of the worthless nothings the 
coveted somethings become when they have been 
obtained without fair and adequate compensation. 

There is a contingency, apparently never con- 
templated as possible by the gambling fraternity, 
which the men of to-morrow ought to consider 
seriously. More than is bargained for may be 
realized, and that too, very different in kind from 
what was desired or anticipated. Instead of afflu- 
ence, there may be merely the experience of in- 
fatuation ; and instead of becoming lord over 
many possessions, there may be, and almost inevi- 
tably will be, slavery to a single overmastering and 
degrading passion. Wealth, very likely, will not 
be gained ; but bondage, inveterate and cruel, to 
a ruinous habit will be established. Oh, sirs, you 
are sure to get something for nothing, but not by 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 2O9 

any means the something you sought and thirsted 
for ! Poor Goldsmith — poor in more senses than 
one — though continually being impoverished by 
the ** tables," never could break the fatal spell that 
bound him to their enchantments. A French phy- 
sician, Dr. Eckeloo, printed a book showing the 
virulence of the malady of playing for money, and 
yet he, with his own work quoted against him, fell 
a victim to the insidious disease. It is said by 
Col ton. Vicar of Kew, in his familiar *' Lacon " : 
''The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profes- 
sion, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every 
other loss, and by the act of suicide, renounces 
earth to forfeit heaven." And yet this clergyman 
was overcome by the vice he had denounced, and 
ended his sermon by illustrating its truth. He 
took his own life. 

I read, I think in '' Nether Side of New York," 
some years ago, that in the city of New York a 
notorious gambling house displayed over the man- 
tel the picture of a tiger. This was doubtless re- 
garded as the presiding genius of the place ; and 
well did it symbolize the fierceness and deadliness 
of the fiery passion at the heart of the confirmed 
gambler. Though to outward seeming he is imper- 
turbable and calm, within the heart there is a caged 
tiger that will not be tamed and that cannot be ap- 
peased. It is related by a modern observer of his 
times that, toward the small hours of a sleety 
morning in a great city, a policeman was accosted 
by an excited stranger, and the following dialogue 
ensued. Pointing to the lighted windows of a 
notorious ''skin" house, he said: "Can you tell 

o 



2IO MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

me, what's that?" "Faro," was the answer of 
the guardian of the peace, " No, sir ; it is hell. 
I've been there ! The devils will be out presently ; 
please don't let them follow me." All right ; but 
the probabilities are that all the devils, real and 
imaginary, will not prevent him, when he has over- 
come his fright, from returning. A striking case, 
illustrative of the fascination that draws back to 
the pit even one as startled as the man who fled 
from faro, was published in the " New Monthly," 
1830, Vol. XXIX., p. 450. At Frascati's, in Paris, 
an officer of the Garde Royale was observed to be 
playing furiously, and the perspiration literally 
streamed from his forehead. It was apparently his 
last stake. He won the game, and a friend influ- 
enced him to leave the room. Evidently he had 
been extremely agitated and alarmed, and had he 
been able to act rationally he never would have 
returned to his perilous encounter with the " fickle 
goddess." The charm of the siren was too much 
for him, and he was soon back again, playing as 
recklessly as before. At one moment, when an 
unusually large prize was swept from him, he was 
heard to mutter sarcastically, ''C'est bieii ; tres 
bienj* A little time passed, and the officer seemed 
to be undecided, and then, while signs of terrible 
agony passed over his countenance, he laid down 
two five -hundred franc bills, and said in a loud, 
strident voice to the dealer : C'es^ mon sa7tg que 
voiis voiilez — le voila / " He then retired into a 
corner of the room, as though he dreaded to hear 
the result announced. There he almost crouched, 
as though oppressed by a sense of ominous fear. 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 211 

At last he approached the table and was told that 
he had lost. A strange look came into his eyes ; 
he quietly drank a glass of sweetened water, and 
went out. The next morning he was found dead 
in his arm-chair, with his sword thrust through his 
neck to the hilt. 

But, in addition to this implacable infatuation, 
itself the most appalling of curses, gambling brings 
with it many humiliating associations and mortify- 
ing experiences. Suppose that it results in tem- 
porary success ; it does not procure, at least in 
America, social standing or social recognition. 
Money secured by dice or cards brings with it 
something not expected nor desired, and that cer- 
tainly was not bargained for — isolation from people 
of reputation and honor. In a city where I lived 
for a number of years, one of the handsomest 
residences, on the proudest of aristocratic avenues, 
was owned by a gambler. I frequently passed it, 
but I never saw any one enter its stately doorway, 
nor saw any carriages waiting there for visitors. 
It looked always as though it were quarantined 
for smallpox, or some other contagious disease. 
Doubtless the proprietor would instance himself 
as one who had obtained a great deal for nothing ; 
b.ut he had also gained a great deal he would, I 
presume, willingly have dispensed with — the scorn 
and contempt of his neighbors. I have in mind 
another illustration of the loneliness which attends 
triumphant vice. A lady called on me with a re- 
quest to attend a funeral, and said that the circum- 
stances connected with the solemn service required 
were peculiar. They were these : A gambler, who 



212 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

had a comfortable home and who, evidently, was 
in no need of money, had been bereaved by death 
of his wife. She had died suddenly, and he was 
perplexed to know how to bury her decently. He 
remarked sadly to a Christian sympathizer that no 
clergyman would come beneath his roof, and that 
no one would read prayers over her body. There 
was no one he could appeal to, and his desolation 
was indeed pitiable. Of course I did not permit 
the remains of the poor woman to be laid away to 
their long rest without suitable religious observ- 
ances, and I believe the husband was duly grate- 
ful. 

But I could not refrain then from thinking, as I 
do still, that wealth acquired in such a way as to 
alienate human hearts from the possessor was not 
worth the having. And this is as applicable to the 
money accumulated by bogus companies, cheating 
endowment schemes, cornering markets, and other 
nefarious practices, as it is to that won by poker or 
faro ; and unless I am strangely mistaken, the men 
who have prospered by these means will ultimately 
realize that they too have received with their cash 
something they did not negotiate for and with which 
they would readily dispense. I might with propriety 
at this point dwell on the dissolute companions a 
taste for gambling attracts — the *' blacklegs," '* bul- 
lies," " decoys," and "jail-birds" that are naturally 
associated with its indulgence ; but I refrain. Let 
it suffice, young men, if you form this rapacious 
habit, you must consent to know all kinds of dis- 
reputable men, and be at least on speaking terms 
with scoundrels whose presence would be an insult 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 213 

to your mother and an infamy to your sister ; and 
you must face the fearful possibility that you, in 
time, may become like your acquaintances, as 
destitute of character and of respectability, and 
may even end your days in a penitentiary, where 
hundreds in Europe and America deservedly lan- 
guish for crimes born of their fatal love for gam- 
bling. 

If science has taught any doctrine clearly, it is 
that this world . is not governed by chance, and 
that things, neither in physics nor morals, fall 
out in a haphazard kind of a way. Life is not 
a game in the true sense of that word, however 
loose thinkers may so represent it, or poetic writers 
so describe it. Nor is man playing blindly against 
a destiny whose hand he cannot force or whose 
bank he cannot break. This universe is estab- 
lished and ordered in law, and its causes and ef- 
fects operate unvaiyingly and unchangeably. It 
is as systematic in its movements and results as 
a Corliss engine, or as any other piece of mas- 
terly mechanism. Fitfulness, irregularity, indefi- 
niteness, and uncertainty are not of its nature, 
and he who imagines that its decisions and prizes 
are determined by infinite caprice has failed de- 
plorably to comprehend its significance. This 
day has been evolved necessarily from yesterday, 
as to-morrow will be the unavoidable product of 
to-day. The sequence is inevitable. What, then, 
must be the condition of society fifty years from 
now, if present tendencies remain unchecked ? 
Should we be unable to repress the gambling form 
of bandit life, must not the world in half a century 



214 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

become pretU^ much a den of thieves, where 
rogues in dress-coats and polished boots shall prey 
upon each other ? When a cit\^ like Boston is re- 
puted to have paid at the rate of six hundred 
thousand dollars a year in small sums toward the 
Louisiana lotter\', and when a nation like America 
has contributed Uvent}'-eight million dollars in one 
year to the support of the same iniquit}-, is there 
not disclosed an alarmingly widespread belief in 
the sovereignt}- of arbitrar}' whim? Judged by 
this wasteful extravagance, multitudes evidently 
entertain the haz\- notion that Providence and 
fickleness are interchans^eable terms, and that the 
throne of the universe is empt\', or is filled at best 
only by a Being whose chief attributes are unre- 
liabilit}' and eccentricity^ 

All such impressions however vague are preju- 
dicial to honest and sound business methods and 
to the growth of wholesome and wealth-producing 
industr}'. For if rewards come to men by no fixed 
rate and only in a loose, fortuitous, and accidental 
wa}^ and if idleness and tricker\^ are as likely to be 
as fully crowned with prosperit}' as well-considered, 
conscientious effort, must not the temptation prove 
nicreasingly strong to adopt the measures that 
call for no particular exertion and that flatter the 
frailties of poor humanit}*? I am painfully sus- 
picious that our people have far less confidence 
than formerly in the absolute and vital connection 
between honorable dealing in toil or trade and 
genuinely remunerative success ; and that conse- 
quently unless there is a radical revolution, they 
will be led to doubt more and more the value of 



SEEKING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 21$ 

integrity and to neglect those laborious pursuits 
which have in the past been counted useful and 
even glorious. How can it be otherwise ? What 
is to avert the operation of the law, which in the 
case of the individual gamester produces personal 
demoralization and irretrievable ruin, when his 
spirit shall have completely infected society ? Will 
it not work as disastrously in the whole body as in 
a single member? Can we conceive of possible 
escape from commercial dishonesty and dishonor 
and from national recklessness and rascality if 
gambling continues to increase, or, indeed, if it is not 
immediately diminished ? This contingency is im- 
minent and can be averted only by the young men 
of this period. If they shall refuse to be dragged 
by the pernicious enticements of their elders into 
this quagmire, whose borders are decked with 
flowers but whose depths are foul as Stygia and 
dark as Erebus, then will a new set of causes be 
brought into play ; and these in the nature of 
things superseding those that are now so fatally 
active will prevent the threatening calamity. I 
therefore with emphatic earnestness entreat the 
youth of to-day to realize how much depends on 
their utter and determined repudiation of every 
kind of hazard in fortune-seeking — how much for 
themselves, for the generation that shall follow, and 
for their country. What they make of themselves 
will decide the character of the approaching cen- 
tury ; and if that century shall be freed from faro 
banks, roulette tables, dice, cards, pilfering schemes, 
and plundering speculations, and shall be distin- 
guished by fair trade and square dealing, it will be 



2l6 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



due to their sternly adhering to the principle that, 
as in the domain of physics, something never springs 
from nothing, and that as in business genuine profit 
can result only from actual investment of capital or 
labor, so always and ever a just something shall be 
rendered for the desired something in return ; and 
that traffickers in nothing shall receive only what it 
can produce— the nothing they deserve so richly. 



VII 
LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 

Mark this : who lives beyond his means 
Forfeits respect, loses his sense ; 
Where'' er he goes through the seven births. 
All count him knave ; him women scorn. 

THE wisdom of Auveiyar, the famous Tamil 
poetess, as expressed in these Hnes is con- 
firmed by a story related by Saadi concerning the 
downward career of a Persian prodigal. As the 
reckless youth was squandering his fortune and in- 
curring debts he never could hope to liquidate, the 
sweet singer of Shiraz thus addressed him : *^ O my 
son, wealth is a running stream and pleasure revolves 
like a millstone ; or in other words, profuse expense 
suits him who has a certain income. When you 
have no certain income be frugal in your expenses, 
because the sailors have a song that, if the rain does 
not fall in the mountains, the Tigris will become a 
dry bed of sand in the course of a year. Practise 
wisdom and virtue and relinquish sensuality ; for 
when your money is spent, you will suffer distress 
and expose yourself to shame." 

The Persian spendthrift had no ear for gentle 
reproach and tender admonition, but replied : " Go 
and be merry, O my enchanting friend ! We ought 
not to be uneasy to-day for what may happen to- 
morrow. How would it become me, who am 

217 



2l8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

placed in the uppermost seat of liberality' so that 
the fame of my bounty is widespread ? When a 
man has acquired reputation by liberality and 
munificence, it does not become him to tie up his 
money-bags. When your good name has been 
spread through the streets, you cannot shut your 
door against it." As a result of this over-confidence 
in himself he soon emptied his money-bags and in 
trying to preserve the show of his former magnifi- 
cence, lost even his good name and completed his 
dissolute course in filth and rags, provoking by his 
wretched condition the sage reflection from the pen 
of Saadi : "The tree which in the summer has a 
profusion of fruit is consequently without leaves in 
winter." In this brief bit of Oriental biography 
we have an illustration of the desperate folly and 
disastrous ending of those who persist in living 
beyond their means. 

Though Souvestre's philosopher expresses him- 
self in warmest praises of poverty, and though John 
Buncle apostrophizes hunger as blessed, humanity 
entertains a very decided disinclination for their 
companionship. The race admires them if at all 
very far off. They are both more picturesque in 
novels than in real life, and they are more thrill- 
ingly fascinating in the perspective than in the 
foreground of one's own home. As far as rhetoric 
goes, Thoreau may be excused for writing : "The 
setting sun is reflected from the windows of the 
almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode ; 
the snow melts before its door as early in the 
spring;" but I am sure the inmates of the poor- 
house would indulge in very different reflections. 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 2ig 

I am not quite clear that Hercules dealt altogether 
fairly by Piutus, when on his arrival in heaven he 
was unwilling to recognize the god of wealth, be- 
cause he had corrupted many mortals by his gifts. 
He ought to have remembered that Piutus was the 
son of Ceres, the goddess of harvests and of plenty, 
and that he had not been entirely useless in dis- 
tributing her benefits throughout the earth. The 
famous Dr. Johnson I am convinced represents 
more faithfully the judgment of mankind on this 
subject, in one of his letters to Boswell : ** Poverty, 
my dear friend, is so great an evil and pregnant 
with so much temptation and so much misery, 
that I cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. 
. . Consider a man whose fortune is very narrow ; 
whatever his rank by birth or whatever his reputa- 
tion by intellectual excellence, what can he do ? or 
what evil can he prevent? That he cannot help 
the needy is evident ; he has nothing to spare. But 
perhaps his advice or admonition may be useful. 
His poverty will destroy his influence ; many more 
can find that he is poor than that he is wise, and 
few will reverence the understanding that is of so 
little advantage to its owner." And an author, 
unknown to me, referring to a noble achievement 
of a master mind, says : *' But he is penniless and 
he has many foes ; and jealousy can with so much 
ease thrust aside the greatness which it fears into 
obscurity, when that greatness is marred by the 
failures and the feebleness of poverty. Genius 
scorns the power of gold : it is wrong ; gold is the 
war-scythe on its chariot, which mows down the 
millions of its foes and gives free passage to the 



220 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

sun-coursers with which it leaves those heavenly 
fields of light for the gross battlefields of earth." 
I do not affirm that all this is as it should be ; only 
that all this is as it is described by these thoughtful 
observers. 

In perfect harmony with their views is the strik- 
ing declaration contained in the Scriptures : "The 
rich ruleth over the poor." Solomon in these 
words discloses the supreme fascination of hoarded 
money — "power" — and the consequent duty of 
battling against indigence. As we love indepen- 
dence the dread of poverty is legitimate. To be 
enamored of it as St. Francis of Assisi claimed to 
be, has no sanction in the Bible and no sufficient 
warrant in sound reason. To the contrary, the 
wise king teaches that the rich man's wealth is his 
strong city ; that he can ransom himself from death 
if he has fallen into difficulties ; that he can pur- 
chase the favor of the great and can hush the 
clamors of his adversaries ; and that he can buy 
not only friendships but positions of honor and 
profit, and with something like impunity treat his 
social inferiors with hauteur and discourtesy.^ Here 
is power — power to defend ; power almost to defy 
evil ; power to gratify ambition, to command sta- 
tion, to pamper pride, and to browbeat and insult 
the weak and helpless. 

But the very opposite picture is drawn of the 
necessitous and insolvent. The poverty of the 
poor separates him from his neighbor and even 
arouses his neighbor's hatred ; and it tends to keep 

iProv. 23 : II, l6 ; 21 : 14; l8 : 13. 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 221 

him in perpetual bondage and it exposes him to 
scorn and contumely. To lose fortune is practi- 
cally to lose friendship and influence and to experi- 
ence the neglect so graphically portrayed by 
Shakespeare : 

As we do turn our backs 
From our companion, thrown into his grave ; 
So his famihars to his buried fortunes 
Shnk all away ; leave their false vows with him, 
Like empty purses pick' d : and his poor self, 
A dedicated beggar to the air. 
With his disease of all-shunn' d poverty, 
Walks, like contempt, alone. 

This sharp contrast surely explains why so many 
people are anxious to acquire gain speedily. They 
are impatient of control, would indulge their tastes 
and appetites without restraint, would be free of 
all men, and would be master of their own time 
and abilities. And deep down in their hearts, is 
there not also an unacknowledged longing to have 
the upper hand of some one, to make him the vic- 
tim of their caprices and passions, and to be them- 
selves in a position to be served and obeyed ? 
Almost every person desires to govern others, to 
be looked up to, and to be feared or respected. 
He resents the idea of being ruled himself, and 
yet he would exercise rule over his fellows and is 
consequently set on procuring the means of com- 
passing his ambition. Unfortunately for not a few 
of these lovers of power — and of power, also, 
that may yield illicit pleasures — they do not curb 
their impatience and content themselves with the 
natural increase of wealth that comes to frugality 



222 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

and industry, for that would delay their reign in- 
definitely ; they would grasp the sceptre at once, 
and assert their sovereignty before they have ac- 
quired a throne. And as they have not the reality in 
which to ground their governance, they are forced, 
by their own unwise haste, to found it in pretense. 
They are not rich ; but if they can only give the 
impression that they are rich, and if they can only 
maintain the appearance of abundance, the result 
on the minds of others will be the same as though 
they were, although, of course, not quite so grati- 
fying to themselves. From this paltry motive, in 
the main though not exclusively, there arises the 
foolish policy — or, rather, the impolicy — of living 
beyond their means. Though in not a few in- 
stances, extravagant outlay (and the word " extrav- 
agant " is here employed relatively ; for what may be 
wastefulness in one person is merely reasonable ex- 
penditure in another) seems to be only a silly display 
of finery, or an equally silly parading of perni- 
cious habits ; yet even in these cases, there is a 
design, more or less covert, to exalt self, to assert 
independence, to show society that these individ- 
uals are sufficiently well-off to defy its convention- 
alities. Hence it is that not only men who are in 
a hurry to be recognized as rulers on 'Change, and 
those who are anxious to acquire political influence, 
are liable to live beyond their means, that they 
may be held in consideration proportionate to their 
reputed affluence ; but young people who crave 
greater admiration than they deserve, and who de- 
light in posing as juvenile Monte Cristos, are 
almost certain to commit the same mistake. 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 223 

The method by which it is generally effected is 
expressed by the term ''borrowing" ; and the sa- 
gacity of Solomon, even in his comparatively un- 
commercial age, discerned the imminent and fatal 
folly of the method. He says, "The borrower is 
servant to the lender" — becomes his dependent 
and his slave. There is, in my opinion, a close 
connection between the two halves of the passage 
we have been following in these reflections ; in the 
first, we have presented the reason why money is 
prized, and which may be summed up in the word 
power — power to rule or to enjoy ; and in the sec- 
ond, a mode of procedure that succeeds in obtain- 
ing the money temporarily, and that results in the 
loss of the very advantage most coveted through its 
possession. In other words, for the sake of ruling 
a man borrows, and straightway comes into bond- 
age — frustrates the end and aim of his existence 
for the momentary seeming to have achieved it 
prematurely. As a suggestive comment on the 
retributive principle thus set forth, we may profit- 
ably ponder the advice of Johnson to Boswell : 
** Live on what you have ; live, if you can, on less ; 
do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure ; the 
vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in re- 
gret. . . Do not accustom yourself to consider 
debt only as an inconvenience ; you will find it a 
calamity. . . Whatever you have, spend less." 

These sound economical views furnish the mo- 
tive and supply the material of my present Mes- 
sage to the Men of To-morrow." 

I would have them realize that they live beyond 
their means if they spend more than they can 



224 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

earn. National bankruptcy, as well as individual 
insolvency, results from the violation of this rule. 
Unless production exceeds consumption — that is, 
unless a people eats less than it grows and wears, 
and uses less than it manufactures — financial ruin 
is imminent. The history of the little Greek com- 
monwealth, Sybaris, affords an illustration in point. 
As a settlement, at first the community was singu- 
larly prosperous, and as wealth increased, the pop- 
ulation multiplied. Large numbers of foreigners 
joined the native-born, and it seemed as though 
there was more than abundance for all. But just 
when the golden age had fully come, poverty was 
preparing rags and wretchedness for the citizens. 
The State began to devour more than it could call 
into being. Pleasure and prodigality assumed the 
upper hand ; delicate viands, expensive wines, ex- 
travagant joys, soon were not to be satisfied with 
the profits, but demanded the capital ; and as that 
diminished, the sufferings and distress of the land 
became more apparent and more appalling. The 
revenues of the country were lavished on what 
produced nothing, and, for a series of years fall- 
ing short of the expenditures, commercial collapse 
and loss of credit inevitably followed. Seneca 
tells the story of a Sybarite who complained that 
he could not sleep one night, as there was a 
crumpled rose-leaf in his bed and it hurt him — an 
anecdote that indicates how comolete is the bank- 
ruptcy wrought by luxury ; for it not only dissi- 
pates wealth, but hopelessly enervates the intelli- 
gence and paralyzes the industry by which wealth 
is created. The past is sadly and tragically elo- 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 225 

quent with the record of spoHation and devastations 
wrought by kixury. It has caused the dethrone- 
ment of kings, the decay of empires, the over- 
throw of governments, the corruption of society, 
the debasement of reHgion, and the emasculation 
of manhood ; in each case involving loss of prop- 
erty and financial embarrassment How could 
it be otherwise, when it naturally tends to sweep 
away inheritance and acquisitions, undermines in- 
tegrity, impairs confidence, shipwrecks mental and 
physical health, and unblushingly exposes the most 
honored names to scorn and contempt? I have 
sometimes been tempted to conclude, from the dis- 
soluteness and despair which money is capable of 
working, that the love of it is not only "the root 
of all evil," but that the possession of it in abun- 
dance is the very life-current and invigorating sap 
of the perennial growth of evil. The trunk, 
branches, leaves, and poisoned flowers of this upas 
are saturated throligh and through with its renew- 
ing and stimulating influences. 

The inglorious and even infamous triumphs of 
luxury may be read in the history of the last days 
of the Roman empire, in the convulsions that 
ended the Bourbon monarchy in France, and in 
the slow decline of some mediaeval sovereignties, 
such as Venice and Genoa, and in the present ex- 
hausted condition of Mohammedan countries. 

And yet we are not to assume that spendthrift 
vices are the only means by which national bank- 
ruptcy is precipitated. There may be costly armies 
to be maintained, expensive wars to be conducted, 
useless navies to be supported ; and there may be 



226 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

failures of harvests and of markets, and failures 
even of sound business judgment to be endured ; 
and in these ways more may be consumed than 
can be produced. If, as a people, we were to 
plant no harvests, manufacture no goods, and en- 
gage in no trade, for several years, we should soon 
exhaust our surplus cash, and then we should be- 
gin to eat up our capital by borrowing money, 
and when that had been disposed of we should 
starve, and that too, not before we deserved our 
fate. But by whatever mismanagement the finan- 
cial affairs of a country may be brought into dis- 
credit, there is always an unvarying sequence. 
When a nation lives beyond its means it lives be- 
yond its liberty ; for in proportion as it consumes 
more than it produces is it dependent on others to 
make good the shortage, and they who confer the 
favor have a right to exact conditions. Hence it 
is that when luxury prevails, a community in its 
earlier stages of decay comes to be governed by 
screws of money-lenders, churlish, sordid, and un- 
merciful, who, as their power increases, become 
less considerate of the feelings of their dupes ; and 
hence it is that States which insist on sustaining a 
glorious war establishment mortgage the entire in- 
stitution to the calculating bankers, and, in reality, 
cannot move it or employ it without their consent. 
That is, the Romanoffs, the Hapsburgs, the Bran- 
denburgs, and the rest, for the sake of appearing 
invulnerable, incur an outlay beyond their resources 
to meet, and so come under bondage to the Roths- 
childs and the rest, who in reality control the cab- 
inets of Europe. 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 22/ 

The economical principles that determine public 
well-being are equally applicable to the welfare of 
the private individual. Professor Rogers, of Ox- 
ford, in his admirable ** Economic Interpretations 
of Histoiy," has shown the wonderful part played 
by money in the vicissitudes and policies of em- 
pires, in their rise and fall, and in their convulsions 
and revolutions ; but in so doing he has not evolved 
a single doctrine of political finance which has not 
a marked bearing on the direction of personal 
pecuniary interests. This is certainly true of the 
laws already expounded regarding production and 
consumption. The unit of society, as well as the 
aggregate, will enjoy comparative security from 
poverty, so long as more comes in than goes out, 
and so long as the increment more than balances 
the recrement. Rest assured that here you have 
the open secret of fortune-making and fortune- 
keeping, and that it lies simply in never living quite 
up to one's means. There must always be an un- 
used margin of profit, a surplus not demanded by 
personal necessities, which takes on the character 
of capital, and which in turn may be used as an 
instrument of wealth. Socrates used to say that 
"he who wants least is most like the gods, who 
want nothing" ; and it may be added that he who 
wants least will save more. If a youth has been 
reared luxuriously, so that fine clothing and various 
indulgences have come to be indispensable, and if 
he is thrown on his own resources it will not be 
easy for him to satisfy what he considers his legiti- 
mate wants on an ordinary salary. I wonder 
whether the business success of so many men who 



228 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

were born in the country and who had not, in early- 
years, the sharpening influence of city associations, 
is not due to the fact, at least in large measure, 
that they were brought up frugally and contracted 
no expensive tastes ; so that they had always on 
hand an unused portion of their income to lay by 
each week, and which, accumulating with their ex- 
perience, enabled them at last to engage in ven- 
tures which brought them amazing fortune. On 
the other hand, I am sure, whether born in the 
country or city, the individual who must dress like 
a nabob, and feast like a lord, and patronize the 
opera like a prince, though his stipend is only a 
pittance, can never have any money ahead, and 
must necessarily be among the first to feel the 
pinch of stringent times. 

If you spend on yourself as much as you earn, 
you are in a bad way, my good fellow ; but if you 
spend more you are mortgaging your future, and it 
is probable you will be unable to pay the debt 
when it matures. At this point the excessive de- 
votion to pleasure discloses its baneful influence. 
It dissipates in what is unproductive the margin of 
profit — that is, it merely consumes ; and it con- 
stantly diminishes the capacity to produce, by en- 
ervating energy and indisposing the mind toward 
industry — that is, it consumes the forces by which 
production becomes possible. The economical rule 
of pleasure is this : it may be indulged up to that 
line where it trenches on wise frugality, and at 
that point it must be stayed ; and it may be pur- 
sued so long as it ministers to mental and physical 
recuperation and does not disqualify for serious 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 229 

endeavor. Beyond these boundaries pleasure be- 
comes improvidence, tending irresistibly toward pau- 
perism. 

Have you ever read the story of Abdallah? 
According to the tradition he was a youth who 
was one day amused to see a peculiarly fascinating 
fly alight on his goblet. He did not brush it away 
or kill it. But the next day he observed that it 
was as large as a locust, and was curiously inter- 
ested in observing it increase until it had acquired 
the proportions of a man. What followed this 
strange development no one really knew, though 
many guessed. Abdallah was missed from the 
gatherings of the thoughtful students, and a mufti 
was sent to seek for him. When he came to the 
room he found the poor boy dead, and on his neck 
a finger-print as large as a human hand, and in the 
soft earth of the garden the footprints of a giant. 
Thus the spirit of wastefulness grows and grows. 
The trifling habits and tastes that foster it become 
more voracious, and at last from it is evolved the 
gaunt form of hungry poverty that strangles hope 
and honor. Have you ever read the story in real 
life of Benedict Arnold ? Little did he imagine, 
when he enthusiastically espoused the cause of 
liberty in America, that he would ever prove base 
enough to betray it in the day of peril. Neither 
could Washington have supposed him capable of 
such villainy when he joined the Continental army, 
in 1775 ; nor could the Massachusetts committee 
have suspected him after his chivalrous conduct at 
Ticonderoga ; nor any of his fellow-patriots have 
dreamt of infamy in a man who had commanded 



230 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

the fleet on Lake Champlain, and who had rejoiced 
with Gates on the capture of Burgoyne's army. 
Nevertheless, he chose, after all, the disgraceful 
career of a traitor, planning to surrender West 
Point to the British ; and failing in this, he carried 
fire and sword into his native State of Connecticut. 
What is the secret of his fall ? Was he simply a 
mean, contemptible creature who loved to assume 
the role of Judas? Far from it. He seems to 
have been generous, brave, and sympathetic ; but 
he lived beyond his means. That was all ; but that 
was eveiything. He was recklessly extravagant, 
and debts multiplied. How to meet these obliga- 
tions perplexed him and led to the adoption of 
artifices unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. 
He was reprimanded for the loose, not to say dis- 
honest, methods he had adopted in administering 
public property. This disgrace, coupled with a 
desire to obtain the means for the indulgence of 
his wasteful habits, led to negotiations for the sur- 
render of West Point. He had tolerated the fly 
on the goblet, and the wretched sequel was only a 
matter of time. The giant he had encouraged co- 
erced him along the Vv^ay of evil, and then, with the 
finger-print of infamy on his character, cast him, 
morally and socially dead, among the British, where, 
in London, he died — a broken and dishonored man. 
My young friend, if you would escape some such 
fate as this, be careful not to live beyond your 
means by spending more than you earn. Be sure 
to lay up a portion of your wages, put them in 
a savings bank that really saves, or in building loan 
associations that do not appropriate investments as 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 23 I 

their own, or in some other way set aside as much 
as possible to form a nucleus of permanent capital. 
Do not kill the goose that lays the golden egg ; 
but this you will do if you keep consuming and 
devouring until all power of production in you is 
paralyzed. 

When nations or individuals live beyond their 
means, they must, if they continue to live at all, 
provide in some way for the difference between 
expenditure and income. This is done by borrow- 
ing ; and this expedient suggests an economical 
maxim which is the complement of the one already 
considered, namely, Never owe more than you can 
pay. All borrowing is not to be condemned, but 
the moral and pecuniary limitations that prevent 
it fr()m becoming a curse and a snare ought to be 
studied and respected. One country may be com- 
pelled to become the debtor of another, and if its 
prospective resources are adequate to the full re- 
demption of its obligations, the course pursued is 
generally viewed as not prejudicial to sound states- 
manship. Thus Professor Rogers says, in extenua- 
tion of the national debt of England, that, though it 
increased during a specific time, the wealth of the 
nation increased more rapidly. As long as the latter 
keeps in advance of the former, bankruptcy will 
be averted. Where this is not the case, then the 
debtor comes to be slave to the creditor, and abso- 
lute insolvency is imminent. If a commonwealth 
has to repudiate its promises to pay, it loses credit, 
and, like the old-time defaulting States of America, 
and even of Turkey, and nearly of Egypt, can 
obtain no loans, nor what is technically termed a 



232 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

quotation on the stock exchange.^ The real advan- 
tage of owing no man any money is being illus- 
trated by recent changes in the habits of the work- 
ing classes. Lately, the bank account of the toil- 
ing millions has been growing in dimensions. 
They have many thousands invested in England in 
mortgages negotiated by savings banks, and should 
these mortgages be foreclosed it would be seen 
that the people had almost bought back the soil. 
Did you ever stop to think that the savings banks 
may come to be a greater and more effectual revo- 
lutionary force than all the dynamite manufactories 
in the world ? The hard cash of the masses out 
at interest will prove the real smokeless and sound- 
less powder by which existing social wrongs shall 
be shattered and blown to indistinguishable ruin. 
The consciousness of these deposits imparts a sense 
of independence ; for they furnish the sinews of 
bloodless war, and as they multiply — that is, as the 
wealth of the world comes to be more equally dis- 
tributed, there will be a more equal distribution of 
the good things of life. I consequently encourage 
the people ever}^where to keep out of debt, to con- 
tract no liabilities, and to shrink from exorbitant 
interest as they would from the touch of an octo- 
pus. 

And what I say to the masses, I repeat with em- 
phasis to the individual : Do not endorse the paper 
of others one dollar beyond what you can pay. 
Frequently have we had to listen to the sad stories 
of those who have lost everything by being sure- 

^ "Economical Inter. Hist.," p. 340. 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 233 

ties. They accommodated friends with the use of 
their names, and, in time, they found themselves 
Hable for a sum exceeding their available re- 
sources, and they too had to go down in the gen- 
eral crash. Solomon of old asked these kind- 
hearted but unwise financiers, ''If thou hast noth- 
ing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from 
under thee? " In other words, a man has no right, 
economically speaking, to bankrupt himself; for 
while, by so doing, he may preserve what belongs 
to a fellow-citizen, he deprives his own heirs of 
their rights in his estate, and may have to receive 
of the substance of his relatives on which he has 
no claim for his own support It is all very well to 
be generous with what is one's own ; but there is 
hardly a man whose property is so absolutely his 
that he can equitably risk it all on the good faith 
of some one else. The rule that should govern, 
where accommodation is sought, is this : Never be- 
come responsible for claims exceeding what you 
can afford to lose without seriously impairing the 
rights of others in your possessions. Recognize 
the fact that, when your name is on the paper, the 
debt is practically yours — that you assume and as- 
sure it ; and if, when you sign, you are not able to 
meet it, the transaction on your part is dishonest 
and may have a disgraceful outcome. 

I entreat my young friends, likewise, to avoid 
purchasing on credit, which is only a form of bor- 
rowing, though it is not often so considered. 
Really, it is a too extravagant method of getting 
on. I concede that in some instances it may be 
necessary, and it may be justifiable as the condi- 



234 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

tions may be altogether reasonable ; but what I 
especially deplore and what I protest against, is 
the somewhat prevalent habit of making a finer 
appearance than there is actual money to pay 
for. My dear boy, you have a very stylish suit 
of clothes on, and I suppose it is gratifying to 
your self-esteem that you can wear it in public. 
Now, in confidence, tell me, have you settled 
for the garments in cold cash, or — excuse me 
— do you sport what really does not belong to 
you ? That venerable and somewhat irascible gen- 
tleman who I perceive is a tailor, answers for you 
by assuring me that he has not received a penny of 
your money, that he has tried to collect it but has 
failed, and means to pursue you unrelentingly to 
the grave. Ah ! here is another version of the 
text, ''The borrower is servant to the lender." 
Surely, your broadcloth must feel somewhat like 
the poisoned shirt of Nessus, and you must be put 
to many contemptible tricks to escape from your 
tormentor. Would you not really be happier in 
humbler attire? As it is, you are living beyond 
your means, expecting to enjoy greater considera- 
tion from others because of your display, whereas 
you are rapidly forfeiting the respect of all ; and if 
you do not correct your conduct, no one will trust 
you, and no one employ you, and you will be de- 
prived even of the means to live. 

The motive that misleads the youth in question, 
I apprehend, influences not a few young people 
to start housekeeping on a scale out of all propor- 
tion to their income. Some one has said, or I have 
thought it myself, that our children desire to begin 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 235 

where their parents leave off. Hence, if they can 
procure the elegancies in no other way, they buy 
them on the credit system, pay usurious interest, 
and submit to a cutthroat chattel mortgage. You 
enter an attractive home and you are pleased by 
the tasteful furniture, the china, and the piano. 
Naturally, you congratulate the youthful couple on 
their prosperity, and perhaps sigh a sigh of envy. 
But listen ; all this is in reality a loan for which 
the improvident husband is paying a rate of inter- 
est that would bankrupt the Rothschilds and create 
a panic on every exchange in the world ; for it is 
still true that the poor pay for the accommodations 
they receive far higher prices than are demanded 
from the affluent. What is the not uncommon 
outcome of these one-sided transactions? Why, 
not infrequently the debtor falls behind in his pay- 
ments. He is annoyed by duns, borrows a trifle 
from a friend to stave off the evil day, struggles 
along for a while longer, and at last' abandons hope 
and sees sewing machine, piano, and the rest go 
back to the shop whence they came, and himself 
minus all that he has paid either of interest or prin- 
cipal. 

In a few instances, this wrong beginning of do- 
mestic life has led to crime, A young man I vis- 
ited in Suffolk County jail (1893) informed me that 
the beginning of his downward career started with 
his purchase of household chattels on credit. '' I 
desired a pleasant home for my bride, and I 
bought more than I could pay for. To meet my 
obligations, I borrowed from my employers without 
their knowing it. The truth was discovered, and I 



236 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

am here." Very different this interview from one 
I had with a bright-eyed youthful wife in Chicago. 
She seemed very happy, and I remarked that her 
home looked veiy pretty; and she answered, **It 
is pretty; for it is paid for." Then she went on to 
tell me that before her marriage her intended re- 
quested her to select a parlor carpet and he would 
buy it on trust, and that she stoutly told him that 
she would do no such thing ; that she would rather 
have no carpet than owe for it ; and that the bare 
floors were good enough for her until she could 
afford to do better. I said ''bravo!" to the cour- 
ageous heart ; and unless I greatly err, the stand 
the little woman took will make a man, and a suc- 
cessful business man, of her husband. 

Do not buy on credit ; and do not, I pray you, 
my youthful friends, contract the habit of borrow- 
ing out and out — pure and simple borrowing of 
money. This way of raising money is often as 
unnecessary as it is vicious ; and the danger is that 
it will grow on one, hke gambling and drinking, 
and become one's second nature. I have known 
men who, it seemed, could not be in one's presence 
ten minutes without soliciting a loan ; and some of 
them too, professors of religion, who could hardly 
express their interest in young converts without 
asking for a slight pecuniary accommodation. I 
have had Bible-class teachers, among whose scholars 
I have hesitated to enroll new converts, especially 
when in affluent circumstances, knowing they would, 
at the earliest moment, ''touch" — that is the eu- 
phemistic term, I believe — the novice for as much 
ready cash as possible. In one case the imposi- 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 23/ 

tion was so palpable that the "plucked pigeon" 
sought refuge elsewhere and lost all concern for the 
welfare of the church. For years my office has 
been a kind of ''loan office" where, on almost 
every- plea, money has been sought. The borrow- 
ers have exceeded the number of beggars. They 
have come to me in every conceivable strait — hav- 
ing been robbed ; having need of help to tide them 
over until the situations they have secured become 
available ; having unexpectedly found themselves 
away from home without resources ; having just 
missed the bank hours ; or having suddenly been 
called to bury a mother who has died at a distance, 
conveniently dying repeatedly ; but whatever the 
plea, promising vehemently to repay almost im- 
mediately, with almost unfailing regularity they 
have never returned to redeem their promises. 
These impecunious creatures, I am sure, believe 
the Scripture to be especially obligatory on clergy- 
men, which sayeth, *' From him that borroweth 
turn not away" ; and they must be confident that 
it is their special vocation to furnish the clergy 
with the necessary opportunity of compliance with 
its injunction. 

It is very easy to drift into this slipshod mode of 
getting on in life. ''Jem," says Tom, "let me 
have five dollars." Now Tom has no especial need 
for the loan, and a walk of a few minutes would 
bring him to the office where he could have pro- 
cured the cash. A month passes, and he meets Jem 
and is gently reminded of his debt. He laughs, 
says "All right," and at the next street corner 
meets Sam and, after proper salutations, asks him 



238 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

to lend him ten dollars. Not forgetful of his obli- 
gation, he hurries to Jem and pays five dollars. 
This is done with a glow of virtue and with an ill- 
defined sensation of having done a smart thing. 
By and by Sam has to be dealt with, and the same 
process is repeated, only the amount borrowed is 
increased. Ultimately, Tom, perhaps hardly real- 
izing what he is doing, adopts this method in larger 
transactions ; and while for a time he may steer 
clear of breakers, the business judgment day will 
arrive, when it will be seen that all along he has 
been trading on his own ** cheek " and the credu- 
lity of the public, and that of other assets he has 
none. And what is especially mortifying in the 
whole affair is that one-half of the ingenuity given 
to the borrowing of money, and one-tenth of the 
dexterity shown in escaping from duns, and one 
per cent, of the prevarication and falsehood em- 
ployed, would have made our foolish youth a con- 
spicuous success in legitimate mercantile pursuits. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, one of the most bril- 
liant of men, affords a painful though instructive 
illustration of the demoralizing effects on character 
and reputation of this shiftless habit. A large por- 
tion of his extraordinary life was spent in evading 
creditors ; and even on his deathbed he would have 
been carried to a sponging house had not the phy- 
sicians prevented the outrage. He seems to have 
come by this weakness in the line of descent from 
his paternal grandfather. That worthy was a clergy- 
man whose wit seems to have cost him his prefer- 
ment ; for, being called to preach a sermon appro- 
priate to the birthday of George I., before his 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 239 

majesty himself, he chose for his text, '* Sufficient 
unto the day is the evil thereof" As a result, he 
was dismissed from his chaplaincy ; and doubtless 
the passage of Holy Writ was, by this circum- 
stance, so impressed on his mind that it reappeared 
in his grandson as a principle of conduct At 
least we are warranted in inferring this much from 
an incident repeatedly told of him. He was called 
on by an indignant creditor who demanded the 
settlement of a long-standing claim, both interest 
and principal ; and to him Richard made answer : 
" My dear sir, you know it is not my interest to 
pay the principal ; and it is not my principle to 
pay the interest." And it is really more by such 
stories as those that Richard Brinsley Sheridan is 
known to this generation and will be known to pos- 
terity, than by his incomparable comedies, ''The 
Rivals" and the ''School for Scandal," or his sin- 
gularly noble and masterly arraignment of Warren 
Hastings in the House of Commons. The best 
parts of him, even the splendor of his genius and 
the wonderful fascination of his speech are lost 
sight of now, or have to be searched for beneath a 
lot of rubbish composed of anecdotes of his dila- 
toriness, his inebriation, and his skillful evasions of 
monetary obligations. 

A sad monument, truly, to a man of exceptional 
endowments and of exceptional opportunities. And 
yet, in spite of such examples, multitudes without 
the ability of Sheridan are living in his poor fashion 
from hand to mouth. Though working people, as 
I have stated, have of late become more provident, 
nevertheless, according to Dr. Blackie, there were 



240 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

in Glasgow thirty thousand cases during a single 
year where wages were levied upon for debt. Can 
you not imagine how much of sorrow and shame, 
of falsehood and trickery, these startling figures in- 
volve? Are these numbers paralleled elsewhere? 
I believe that at least they are indicative of the 
extent of the evil against which I raise my voice, 
and are also suggestive of the taunts and scoffs 
and insults to be submitted to by this immense 
debtor class, and of the fawning, cringing, lying, 
that must continually degrade the helpless creatures 
who are in the grip of the lender. Yea, young 
man, if you are willing to be humiliated by gross 
imputations ; if you are ready to become a hypo- 
crite and a deceiver; if you have made up your 
mind to lose your self-respect, to be despised by 
the community, and to blush to look your fellow- 
citizens in the face — enter on the career of a con- 
scienceless borrower and you will speedily have all 
the infamy you covet. 

These economical principles receive striking con- 
firmation in the domains of letters and religion 
where, likewise, they have a significance all their 
own. Life is a unit, and never is it made more 
apparent than in the application of rules governing 
its material prosperity to the advancement of its 
mental and moral interests. It will be evident to 
all who think, that, in the spiritual as well as in the 
temporal, we are not justified in undertaking to 
disburse more than we possess. Reserve of re- 
source and of strength is indispensable ; and yet 
multitudes are continually attempting more in the 
sphere of literature and reform than they are ca- 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 24 1 

pable of performing. They have attempted poetry 
beyond all that they had of the poetic gift ; and 
painting, though destitute of a genius for art ; and 
ambitious discussions of the philosophy of the uni- 
verse, when their scientific and spiritual knowledge 
was transparently shallow and inadequate. They 
have essayed an intellectual business on too vast a 
scale for their limited capital. Heine said of Rich- 
ter that he was more prolific in thought than any 
of his contemporaries, and yet that he was so 
driven before the public by uncontrollable circum- 
stances, that very much of it appeared in a crude 
and unfinished state ; that is, he paid out more than 
he had of the precious metal, more than he had been 
able to store in the strong vaults of his soul, and 
the issue had to be one of paper, and far below 
the face value at that. With Schiller it was other- 
wise. He never seems to have overdrawn his men- 
tal bank account. By the generosity of a prince 
he was able to spend sufficient time in retirement 
for his works to be thoroughly matured and ex- 
quisitely finished before they were published. The 
Shakespeares and Goethes are a class by them- 
selves ; but whether they prepare slowly or hastily, 
we always feel that they have not overdrawn them- 
selves, and that, with all they have coined in gold 
pieces, the bullion in the treasury of their exhaust- 
less genius is as abundant as ever. Still these ex- 
ceptional cases ought not to foster presumption in 
us. By industrious application let our wealth accu- 
mulate ; and let us not be in a hurry to pay out at 
once all our earnings and more too. We had bet- 
ter store up and sedulously retain part, and then 

Q 



242 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

what we save wUl sen^e as capital for future ven- 
tures. 

And we may take to heart this counsel, likewise, 
in all of our plans to accomplish good. At times, 
stripling boys and thoughtless girls who have re- 
cently made profession of religion, equipped with 
a soft-back Bible and unmeasured assurance, will 
reprove, rebuke, and assail those who have been 
long in the ser\*ice for their deficiencies, sweetly 
assumincr that the\' themselves are more than half- 
way to perfection. Such precocious exliortations 
rarely benefit any one ; for it is seen that they are 
not bom of personal experience, that they have no 
real value in them, but are like new ten-dollar bills 
that have been put prematurely in circulation by a 
bank whose capital has never been paid up. Then 
there are no\*ices who are going at once to reclaim 
the \-icious, the fallen, the criminal ; to make a 
garden out of the slums and angels out of their 
denizens. Unquestionably, much can be done in 
this direction by skilled labor, but hardly an\-thing 
except mischief by amateurs. These latter have 
purses altogether too slender in thought and slim 
in \'irtue ; and unless the\* are careful, they will 
come out of the enterprise bankrupt in reputation. 
They have no business in the resorts of wickedness, 
where the temptations ma}- prove too much for 
their strength. An illustration in point : A New- 
York journal, some two or three years ago, pub- 
lished this sad account of a Salvation lassie who 
had been sent out by the inconsiderate authorities 
to confront iniquit}' on that threshold of hell known 
as the saloon. Her name was Mar}- Preble, and 



I 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 243 

every night she would push open the baize door of 
the drinking place, and ask, " Buy a 'War Cry' ?" 
The men were charmed by her sweet face, partly 
hidden by her poke bonnet, and by the modesty 
of her demeanor. They all purchased her wares, 
though these loafers and bummers and tipplers 
never read what she sold ; and the devils in pan- 
demonium laughed at the simplicity of those who 
exposed the innocency of such a girl for the sake 
of influencing such worthless characters. For why 
send fair maidens into the slums, where only 
matured matrons or stalwart men should go, unless 
it is sagely calculated that sex will count for much ? 
And how much real good will be accomplished 
where sex is largely relied on to charm the erring ? 
This is a grave question, which ought to be met ; 
and it ought not to be ignored by those who have 
the interests of humanity at heart. 

But to return to my story : In the bar-room 
was a man who had a daughter of his own. He 
pictured to himself how shocked he would be were 
he to find her in such a place. The painful situ- 
ation of this defenseless soldier of salvation 
oppressed him. He was a man of the world ; he 
knew the dangers growing out of evil environment ; 
and he was moved to indignation that foolish ma- 
jors and commanders should send so young a war- 
rior on so forlorn a hope. What followed may best 
be told in the language of the reporter : 

" * Excuse me, miss, but how many papers have 
you ? ' 

"'Fifteen, sir,* said Mary, with an inquiring 
glance. ' Will you buy one ? ' 



24-4 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

" • 1*11 take all of them,* said he, dropping a dol- 
lar into her pahn. Then, placing his hand upon 
her shoulder, he urged her gentiy toward the door, 

Liri^e gir. r: home. Go home; this is no 
pl?-:r ::r you. 1^'.-:t my ad\'ice and never go into 
a 5.^.; : . again I 

"This was 5:. i such a tone of earnestness 
that the girl was startled. She tried to resist, to 
explain. But he would not listen. * Never play 
with fire, my girl ; it is sure to scorch, especially 
such a fair skin as yours.* 

" He saw her out on the sidewalk, and then re- 
turning to the bar-room, shoved the ** War Crys' ** 
into the ash barreL There was a cj-nical smile on 
the face of one of his firiends. He started to voice 
an idea which would have been a reflection upon 
the chastity- of the woman and the motives of her 
would-be friend, but a look of such ardent reproof 
such withering contempt, met his that he stam- 
mered and turned away. 

" Meanwhile Maiy rode up to the barracks in 
Fourth Avenue, opposite Cooper Union, somewhat 
nettled at her unceremonious dismissal *I guess 
I can take care of myself' she 51: i. tossing her 
bonn\^ head with the egotism of youth. The next 
day Mary started out again with a bundle of papers^ 
She natura"y went to the bar-rooms, because she 
a - V 1.5 5 ; 1 - - e r ; ?- : t r i : e ?. diiy there. M en who 
frequent hquor 5?h:::.s are ufuahy ^er.erous. 
Gradually she h e : r: . e ?. : : 5 : : ~ e i : : : :: e 1 : r.: r-s- 
T)hcrc of" tlie^c ' --i~- ^ '^"e " -. f .-- time ".v^icn 
r::e :;za::: in;:^:c :^::^ea 1:^: a::a :l:c scent of 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 245 

liquor was nauseating, but by constant association 
these odors became very pleasant. 

** One night about four months ago Mary went 
into a gilded liquor palace in Broadway. She did 
not blush now. With quick, appreciative glance 
she took in the sheriy bottles, the suggestive pic- 
tures, the handsome bartender in his immaculate 
apron, and aromatic odors arose like fragrant in- 
cense to her nostrils. A man who had forgotten 
his prayers, the holy memories of his pure boy- 
hood, and his manliness in a vicious life, said to 
her : 

'* * Miss, wouldn't you like to try a cocktail ? ' 

*''0h, no, sir; I'm obliged to you. But it's 
wicked to drink cocktails." 

" * Nonsense,' was the reply. * It's wicked to eat 
too much. One little cocktail won't hurt you.' 

'* Inclination and cajolery did its deadly work, as 
it has always done. And the cocktail tasted good 
to Mary. Its taste lingered in grateful sweetness 
upon her palate. But she wouldn't take another. 
Oh, no ! she had had enough. And with a flush 
upon her cheek she fled into the street. That was 
the beginning. The cocktail is a very insidious 
mixture. When once it has rippled in a ruby cas- 
cade down a throat — especially the sensitive throat 
of a woman — something is sure to happen. The 
case of Mary was no exception to the general rule. 
An ambulance was called to a building 1 1 Varick 
Street on Friday night. The surgeon found Mary 
there in an intoxicated condition. She was 
removed to Bellevue Hospital, where she is now 
recuperating in the alcoholic ward. Mary does 



246 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

not sell the * War Cry ' any more. Neither is she so 
beautiful as she was when she drank the first cock- 
tail." And I am thinking it will not be altogether 
a pleasant nor an easy task for those who sent this 
poor lamb into the wilderness among wolves, to 
account for their guilty folly before the bar of the 
Great Judge. 

I am the last person in the world to discourage 
the young from Christian activity ; but I would 
guard them from supposing that divine messages 
are to flow through them to others, none finding a 
final resting-place in their own hearts. When they 
have acquired a heavenly thought regarding the 
resistance of evil, I would have them not give 
away the capital, but only the accrued interest, to 
others. The word ''to pray in secret," when its 
preciousness is grasped, ought to be taken to the 
closet ; for its worth to the world will not be in re- 
peating over and over again that it is an excellent 
precept, but in what it brings to the character. 
Alas ! too many Christians are living beyond their 
means. They attend church and listen, but they 
do not heed ; they do not garner up ; they do not 
save ; and they rarely try to turn what they do 
accumulate to any practical account. So, likewise, 
thousands read and never learn, pore over books 
and never remember; and consequently are no 
richer for the time they give and the thought they 
bestow. They are moral spendthrifts ; and the sad 
feature of their conduct is that they are sacrificing 
their opportunities for honorable usefulness and 
are coming into helpless bondage — bondage to 
their own superficial methods and bondage to the 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 247 

good opinions of others which they are seeking to 
conserve by this show of power — the power of 
doing more than others on a smaller investment, or 
the power of thriving religiously on what is received 
weekly, without ever taking the trouble to use it, 
even in part, for the advantage of others. 

The economics of private life, as developed in 
this Message, are suggestive of an additional spir- 
itual interpretation. In the moral world it is per- 
haps impossible that we should escape indebted- 
ness; but it is possible that we should in some 
measure repay what we have received. This gen- 
eration is a bank in which has been deposited the 
treasures of all former time, and these treasures 
ought to be transmitted with interest to the coming 
ages. The wealth of Holy Scriptures, the affluence 
of Shakespeare's thought, and the riches of philoso- 
phy, poetry, science, discovery, invention, have 
been stored in the strong vaults of the present ; 
and as we living beings have the benefit of them 
and the joy of them, we, in a sense that does not 
strain the figure, owe for them and ought to be 
diligently minded to make payment for them. A 
cynical friend frequently resisted appeals for money 
when made on behalf of philanthropies to advan- 
tage posterity, with the sharp retort that posterity 
had never done anything for him ; but he forgot 
that his ancestry had. The rule is, that we render 
to the future what we have received from the past ; 
and where care is not taken to do so, the neglect 
is morally comparable to the conduct of a man 
who should borrow a large sum, and who should 
then die without returning it, and without having 



248 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

made provision for its restoration. Out of our in- 
herited possessions, therefore, we ought to coin an 
increasing currency of knowledge, ideas, arts, im- 
provements, and general blessings for those who 
come after us. Are you doing this ? Or are you 
indifferent to the claims of the generation that is 
tramping hard on your heels, and willing even, so 
to speak, that your paper should go to protest? 
If you are, then are you indeed blameworth}^ Pay 
what }'ou owe, and pay it promptly and gladly. 
Let there be prudent and wise investments of the 
immense moral and mental capital you have had en- 
trusted to your care, so that the civilization you are 
helping to fashion may go down to your children, 
enriched with a puritj', intelligence, and grace un- 
kno\\Ti to ancient times. 

But in aiming to meet this requirement and ob- 
ligation, let me entreat you not to receive too much 
on trust. If it is reprehensible in business to allow 
vast properties, tax-paying and interest-bearing, to 
burden us, when we have really no more than a 
nominal right in them, how little wisdom must there 
be in accepting creeds, theologies, and shibboleths 
which we have not made our own b}' investigation, 
but have greedily appropriated merely on credit. 
Is there not a ver}^ close alliance between this same 
credit and what is denoted by the term credulity? 
Remember you cannot hold any dogma or religious 
or philosophical opinion without paying for the 
"accommodation" — if a commercial term may be 
permitted in this connection. You will be called 
on continually to give your influence to its support 
and in more ways than one to subscribe for its 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 249 

propagation ; yea, the entire significance of your 
career will be counted on the side of your professed 
beliefs. This is as it should be ; you cannot com- 
plain. If you will insist on alleging a title to im- 
mense estates for which you have no actual deed, 
you must not grumble if you have to settle with 
the assessors. 

Dropping all figures of speech, permit me to 
exhort you, my young friends, to be reasonably 
sure that you have gained the truth before you 
avow yourself the disciple of any teacher. You 
cannot afford to be committed irrevocably to a lie, 
or even all your days to fear that what you have 
subscribed to may turn out a lie at last. Be 
thoughtful, judicious, reserved. You owe this much 
to your own honor, and you owe it to the genera- 
tion that shall soon fill the scene with its cries and 
contentions, and that will necessarily be largely de- 
termined in its beliefs by your imprimatur. How 
dare you be inconsiderate of the welfare of your 
descendants ? How dare you burden their con- 
sciences with a heritage of crude, unintelligible 
theories, or compel them to repudiate the wisdom, 
and possibly even to criticise the honesty of their 
ancestors? Burn, destroy whatever you know to 
be false ; at least have no complicity with it ; and 
do not, for God's sake, suppose that you will add 
to the affluence of coming ages by transmitting to 
them effete and exploded views on any subject 
connected with this veracious universe. You might 
as well expect to increase their fortunes by com- 
mitting to them millions of paper currency issued 
by a Continental Congress, a French Directory, or 



250 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

by the Confederate States, which, though it once 
sensed as a practical medium of exchange, has now 
no conceivable value, except as a memorial of tem- 
pestuous days, as the governments whose mandates 
or fiats created it a legal tender no longer exist to 
make good their promises. 

In conclusion, I commend to you who may pause 
to consider my words a wise and honest thrift in 
intellectual and spiritual concerns, as well as in 
those which are purely financial. We cannot attain 
to all knowledge, nor possess all gifts, any more 
than we can individually acquire the ownership of 
the world's wealth. Let us be satisfied with that 
which can be won by thorough-going diligence, 
and let us be sure that what we gain, however 
small it may appear in comparison with the for- 
tunes of others, is in reality our own. Remember, 
it is not the extent of our property that insures 
content, but the genuineness of our title-deeds. 
An unmortgaged acre is better than a nominal 
equit}^ in a farm which, any day, may be swept 
away before the breath of the auctioneer. A little 
that is unquestionably and inalienably our own will 
impart greater comfort to the mind than the much 
more we may be hopelessly striving for, or to which 
we may never have anjiihing but the most shadowy 
and precarious of claims. If once we can only 
emancipate ourselves from the craving to seem to be 
what we are not, and to seem to have what we possess 
not, we shall have made substantial progress toward 
personal happiness. And if we can only conclude 
cheerfully to dispense with that which we do not 
own and to abstain from pretending to bestow what 



LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS 25 I 

we never had to confer, we shall be on the high 
road to an individual millennium. At the founda- 
tion of all our misery is the widespread readiness 
to substitute sham for solidity and the show of 
things for the things themselves. So deadly is this 
infatuation that we are continually deceiving our- 
selves. Even in religion and reform we abandon 
ourselves to the delights of illusion. On one side, 
a church publishes a glowing account of her num- 
bers, her activities, and her glorious benefactions, 
which, when explored, often turn out to be woeful 
though unintended exaggerations ; on the other, a 
missionary body announces the triumph of Christi- 
anity, and points to two million heathen converts, but 
fails to notice that there has also been an enormous 
increase of heathen, the population having grown 
to one hundred and ninety millions more benighted 
creatures during the time the two millions were 
being saved than existed upon the earth in 1800, 
when the gospel began to do effective work. En- 
thusiastically we are assured that there are six 
thousand clergymen in London, and thousands of 
lay workers, but the sad statement is not often 
made that seven-eighths of its population never 
enter a house of worship — a condition of things 
paralleled elsewhere. Moreover, we are informed 
by temperance advocates that the cause they rep- 
resent is on the eve of sweeping everything be- 
fore it; and yet we are expending annually in 
America on intoxicating drinks of various kinds 
one billion two hundred million dollars, to which 
may be added as an expense account resulting from 
crime, pauperism, and loss of productive capital, a 



252 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

sum sufficient to bring the total up to two billions of 
dollars — nearly three hundred million dollars more 
money than the entire circulating medium — gold, 
silver, or paper — in this land of freedom. Ought 
we not to look facts in the face? Ought we not 
to abandon forever the habit of palming off on 
ourselves and others, as truth, the fictions we de- 
sire to have true? Failure to do so involves indi- 
viduals and communities in all the evils sketched 
in this Message, and retards indefinitely social and 
personal advancement. Better far the spirit incul- 
cated by a quaint old poet, who commends con- 
tentment and the hearty enjoyment of earthly 
possessions, untainted by the diseased desire for 
more than can reasonably be used, or more than 
will cheerfully be bestowed : 

Some have too much, yet still do crave ; 

I httle have and seek no more ; 
They are but poor though much they have, 

And I am rich with little store ; 
They poor, I rich ; they beg, I give ; 
They lack, I leave ; they pine, I live.^ 

1 Quoted by Rev. R. F. Horton, m. a., in "Expositor's Bible," 
Vol. Proverbs, p. 356. 



VIII 

ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 

Honest fame is to me ajoy; 
I wish to be a man 

Whose heart the poison of passion 
Is powerless to corrupt ; 

Whom neither gain can blind. 

Nor rank, nor hate, nor the glitter of wealth ; 

Whose only teacher is truth ; 

Who, loving him,self, loves all the worlds 

With a wise, enlightened love 

That is not slothful in good works. 

IN exploring some of the attractive by-paths of 
Russian Hterature, my eyes were arrested by 
the Hnes just quoted from the pen of Derzhaven ; 
and, though the connection may not be very clear 
to the reader, I was straightway impelled to medi- 
tate on worldly success. Perhaps the relation be- 
tween the verse and the homily may be made 
manifest as I proceed, but if not, it must remain, 
with other singular associations of ideas, unac- 
counted for and unexplained. 

Boys are fond of carving their names on trees, 
benches, and even on elegant articles of furniture ; 
and multitudes of older people imitate their ex- 
amples and cut and hew some recollections of 
themselves in the stone or wood of famous build- 
ings. Ascend the narrow stairway leading to the 
roof of the great Milan Cathedral, and the eye 

253 



254 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

cannot fail to rest on inscriptions recording the 
momentous fact that Jones visited this spot on a 
certain date, that Smith followed him at another 
date, and that Jack Robinson also had immortal- 
ized himself at a still later day by climbing the in- 
numerable steps. Other edifices reveal the same 
singular craving for recognition. On the walls of 
Heidelberg Castle, on the glass in windows of his- 
toric palaces, and even on the porches of ancient 
tombs, unknown men and women have left traces 
of themselves. Who shall account for this idiosyn- 
crasy? At first we instinctively ascribe it to van- 
ity. Probably this weakness is in some measure 
responsible. It has often been observ^ed that indi- 
viduals w^ho have never done anything memorable 
themselves seem to imagine that in some myste- 
rious way they share the glory of the deed if they 
can stand on the spot where it was performed or 
shake hands with some one who saw it wrought. 

Being entertained by some venerable dames on 
the seacoast of Massachusetts, I was impressed by 
their desire for distinction and by the grounds on 
which it rested. One of them assured me that her 
husband blew the whistle of the steamer "Monohan- 
sett" when the news arrived of Richmond's surren- 
der to Grant, and did so in a manner to suggest 
that that whistle-blowing was in some vital sense as 
necessary to the triumphant close of the Civil War 
as the successes of the Union army. But the 
other old lady, with a look of self-satisfaction, de- 
clared that her spouse, though he had not blown 
that victorious whistle, enjoyed the enviable honor 
of having heard it. And here were these octo- 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 255 

genarian women boasting, in turn, not of what they 
had done, but of what their husbands had per- 
formed and heard, and which were but as the faint- 
est echoes of glorious events wherewith they were 
not in the remotest degree connected. 

Shall we deride this folly? Shall we scoff at 
this silly vanity ? Far from it ; for while in one 
sense it is pitiable, in another it is pathetic and 
suggesdve. It reveals not only the stupendous 
egotism of the average man, but discloses his inor- 
dinate ambition to leave upon the world some mark 
of his having dwelt within its borders. He feels 
that he is here to stamp himself on something, and 
cannot be satisfied unless he is able to affix his sig- 
nature on an enduring monument. Hence, if he 
can do nothing else, and before he is qualified to 
do anything else, he carves his name on school- 
house door, on beech or birch tree, or traces it in 
various places where heroes have fought or mar- 
tyrs suffered. But there are many young people 
who are fitted and gifted to gratify this desire in a 
more practical and creditable way. They can, if 
they will, imprint their names upon the age and 
leave behind them ''footprints on the sands of 
time." And I am convinced that the very long- 
ing I have briefly touched on is the spring of the 
persistent efforts put forth by thousands to achieve 
worldly success. They would hew themselves into 
civilization rather than into ancient churches, and 
they would make themselves felt in contemporane- 
ous histoiy rather than leave a poor record of them- 
selves in some album, or on some perishable shrine 
reared to commemorate another's greatness. 



256 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

That a youth should seriously determine to get 
on and get up is in every way commendable. I 
am afraid, however, that not a few ardent souls 
have only imagined that they have so purposed. 
They desire, but they do not will. When they 
declare that they mean to press on until they find 
a fortune, they either mean nothing, or, at most, 
that they are perfectly willing to be found of for- 
tune. They lack energy and perseverance to hunt 
success, but are resigned to their fate if success 
v/ill only hunt them. We cannot liken them to 
the rushing stream that whirls the mighty mill- 
wheel, but to the empty reservoir prepared to wel- 
come and treasure up any amount of incoming 
waters. They are sponges ready to absorb indefi- 
nitely; but they do not seem to appreciate the 
qualities of a stone which grinds obstructions into 
powder. Dreamily they await the favoring breezes, 
but have not the least idea of getting up steam on 
their own account. Their intentions are excellent 
and their resolves are admirable, but not much 
can be said of their staying qualities. Infirm 
of purpose, vacillating, shifting, and fickle, they 
stumble on, notwithstanding various personal 
graces, toward inevitable failure. But there are 
others, and a goodly company at that, who are not 
the slaves of idle and inoperative wishes. Not 
only have they a settled object, but they drive 
toward it with resolute, all-conquering energy. 
Thomas Carlyle reminds his readers that Grimm, 
the German antiquary, interprets the name Odin, 
of the Norse divinities, to mean *' movement,'' 
whereon he founds, in various essays, his constant 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 2S7 

admonition that men should be ''movers" — men 
who bring something to pass. The spirit of these 
exhortations has been felt by youngsters entering 
upon life who have vowed that they will achieve, 
and who, by their energetic action, are echoing 
anew the sentiment of Cato : 

' Tis not in mortals to command success ; 

But we' 11 do more, Sempronius ; we' 11 deserve it. 

If any class is entitled to a helping hand it is this 
class. They surely deserve that the wisdom of the 
ages, as exemplified in the men who have con- 
ducted life without disaster, should be condensed 
and presented for their benefit ; and that especially 
the conditions of earthly prosperity and victory, as 
illustrated in the nineteenth century, should be 
brought to their attention. Hence, this Message 
on Achieving Worldly Success. 

My young friends, if you have made up your 
minds to succeed, begin to do so at once, for you 
have no time to lose. It has been reported to the 
credit of a great sailor that, when he was asked by 
the government at what time he could take com- 
mand of the fleet, replied, ** Now — at once." Like- 
wise, if a youth is anxious to know when he ought 
to commence his career, my answer is. Immedi- 
ately — without delay. There are persons who think 
otherwise. They encourage the idea that earlier 
years should be given to ease and to entire oblivion 
concerning the stern realities of existence. Even 
school and college they would have conducted as a 
pleasure field, and would put off as long as pos- 
sible the decisive day when the student addresses 

R 



258 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

himself to the serious side of his vocation. In 
harmony with this misguided poHcy the sentimental 
Schiller mournfully sings : 

Oh ! tell me, 
What is the need and purpose of the toil, 
The painful toil, which robbed me of my youth, 
Left me a heart unsoul' d and solitar}', 
A spirit uninformed, unornamented ? 

If the poet merely deplores the perversion of a 
young life, crushing it beneath the burdens of hard 
poverty, I sympathize with his lamentation ; but if 
he bewails, according to the custom of genius, 
that responsibilities had to be met, duties rendered, 
and discipline recognized in the formative period 
of existence, then I dissent from him absolutely. 
Of course, I do not insist that boys should set out 
at once to be bankers, preachers, la\\yers. My 
contention is that they should begin as soon as 
possible to prepare for their calling, and to be as 
earnest in preparing as they must be in prosecuting 
their calling when they have formally entered on 
its duties. The one should be as much a business 
matter as the other ; they should, indeed, be con- 
sidered but as parts of the same business, and be 
taken up with the same spirit of ardor. Civiliza- 
tion is to-day so complex and refined, the mechan- 
ical arts so comprehensive and intricate, the learned 
professions so exceedingly learned, that recognized 
leadership in any department calls for the most 
untiring and intelligent devotion. Delays in be- 
ginning almost necessarily mean failure. So much 
has to be mastered before the most modest of posi- 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS - 259 

tions can be attained that the sooner a commence- 
ment is made the better. Young man, the nine- 
teenth century writes on the commission of mod- 
ern hfe the word ** urgency." If you succeed in 
commerce, your success must compare with that 
of Vanderbilt or Rockefeller ; if you win the prize 
in poetry, your verses must stand the test of 
Tennyson's and Browning's triumphs ; if you gain 
renown as a scholar, you must not lag behind Max 
Miiller and Driver ; and if you would secure a 
notable place as a scientist, statesman, orator, or 
inventor, you must at least make some show of 
equaling Darwin, Gladstone, Sumner, and Edison. 
A task, this, of Herculean proportions, and one 
that cannot, with safety, be delayed. "The king's 
business requires haste " is the statement recorded 
in Holy Writ ; and to be king in any calling at 
this period of human progress demands haste also. 
The number of our years is not sufficiently great 
for the earlier ones to be frittered away, and the 
difficulties of ascent are too enormous for the be- 
ginning of the climb to be postponed. 

Dean Stanley, when speaking of the English 
general, Sir James Outram, described on his me- 
morial tablet in Westminster as the ''Bayard of 
India," recalled the fact that the knightly Bayard 
was only thirteen years of age when he entered on 
his first service. And in St. Paul's Cathedral, Lon- 
don, there is a monument in honor of Capt. George 
Westcott, who was killed in the battle of the Nile, 
and who joined his first ship as a cabin boy, rising 
from that humble station to the quarter-deck. 
Chevalier and commander certainly lost no time in 



260 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

getting down to work, and therefore were in a posi- 
tion to improve every opportunity that promised to 
advance their fortunes. And, it should be remem- 
bered, favoring opportunities do not occur so fre- 
quently that any one can afford not to push ahead 
and welcome them as they approach. The Per- 
sians relate a fable of a nightingale and an ant. 
Each found a home close to the other — the bird in 
a fragrant bush and the ant at its root. While the 
latter was industriously engaged, the former occu- 
pied itself with its own sweet voice and in whis- 
pering melodious secrets to the rose. The ant 
could not but admire the coquettish airs of the 
flower and the gay blandishments of the king 
of song; and yet dubiously it reflected: "Time 
alone can disclose what may be the end of this 
frivolity and talk." Well, as was surmised, this 
thing could not last forever. The winter came, 
and with it desolation. There was no food above 
ground, and only thorns on the once fragrant bush. 
Wing-weary and cold, the nightingale returned to 
the scene of his revels and, famished, appealed to 
his neighbor, the ant, for relief; but to his en- 
treaty that shrewd economist replied: **Thou wast 
day and night occupied in idle talk and I in attend- 
ing to the needful ; one moment thou wast taken 
up with the fresh blandishments of the rose, and 
the next busy in admiring the blossoming spring. 
Wast thou not aware that every summer has its fall 
and every road an end?" 

And another fable to the same effect tells how a 
grasshopper came to the ant for part of her winter 
store: *'Tell me," she said, **what you did in the 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 26 1 

summer." ''I sang," replied the grasshopper. 
"Indeed," rejoined the ant, ''then you may dance 
and keep yourself warm during the winter." ^ The 
old story of neglected opportunities is thus brought 
home to our consciences and common sense. 
Often has it been said that " delays are dangerous," 
and there is none more presumptuously perilous 
than that of youth postponing serious effort until 
manhood. The poet has beautifully sung : 

I would wear out like that morn 
Which wasted not a sunbeam. 

And so the morn of life should be carefully im- 
proved, that it may grow into resplendent noon. 
I do not say that great things are impossible to 
aged people. We have instances to the contrary 
recorded in these pages ; but I claim that the rule 
still holds good that the earlier we begin, the 
greater will be the probabilities of large and per- 
manent success. The young gentleman of whom 
I read the other day as donning spectacles because 
he had worn his eyes out looking for a nice, easy 
job, is not likely to startle the world by the magni- 
tude of his operations or the abundance of his 
wealth. There must be a disposition to take hold 
at once on whatever presents, even though it may 
be disagreeable, and though it may be far from re- 
munerative. Remember that Alexander and Na- 
poleon were both considerably below the snow-line 
of age when they were acknowledged the military 
chiefs of their times ; and, to quote from a recent 

^See "Flowers from a Persian Garden." 



262 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

article on the triumphs of youth : ''Xe\^'ton made 
his greatest discover}' in the realm of natural forces 
before he was t\vent}'-five. Bacon had conceived 
his dislike for the philosophy of Aristotle and had 
started out on his own philosophical lines of 
thought while not vet t\vent\*. Watt had the 
principles of the steam-engine clearly in mind 
before he was thiru', after ^-ears of thinking in 
that direction. Dante, Shakespeare, ]\Iilton, and 
Goethe, gave evidence of their poetic genius while 
yet young, and their greatest works bore evidence 
of the inspirations of their youth and early man- 
hood. Raphael died at thirty-seven, having long 
been the world's greatest painter. ]\Iozart was not 
thirt}*-seven when he died, as great among the 
greatest musicians. ^lichael Angelo was only 
twent}^-three when he executed his * Pieta ' — a 
work that indicated his completest knowledge of 
design and anatomy, and his fullest power of ex- 
pression in sculpture. Luther proclaimed his posi- 
tion in conflict with the current theolocr\' of the 
Church of Rome when he was t\ventj/-nine, and 
Calvin wa5 onh* twent\--seven when he published 
his 'Institutes of the Christian Religion,' which is 
still looked to b}- so man}' wise and venerable men 
as an authoritative statement of doctrines that 
oup-ht to be believed bv all." 

There are likewise verj' few of the great scien- 
tists or merchants who did not begin their illus- 
trious careers before they had attained their major- 
it}'. Ezra Cornell, the founder of Cornell Univer- 
sity.', as a bov was remarkable for his sagacit\^ and 
intelligent devotion to work. He was the son of a 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 263 

farmer, who also labored at the trade of a potter. 
While he was given to sports, he was never idle. 
Sometimes he devised new instruments for his fa- 
ther, and he and his brother actually planned and 
built a frame house for the family. There was no 
looking for an easy berth, and no disposition to 
commit to an uncertain future what was clamoring 
to be done at once. John Wanamaker, likewise, 
the merchant prince of Philadelphia, began active 
life by turning bricks for his father before school 
hours, earning two cents a day. Afterward he en- 
tered a bookstore, where he received the wage of 
one dollar and twenty-five cents a week, and each 
day walked eight miles between his home and his 
place of business. It is told of Edison, the '^ Wiz- 
ard of Menlo Park," that he started for himself 
while yet a lad, selling papers and peanuts. But 
even then he did not waste his spare moments. 
Whenever he had or could make leisure, he gave 
himself to the reading of history and science ; and 
it was this diligent preparation that enabled him to 
repair some deranged machinery in a telegraph 
office which no one else understood. His success 
in this instance determined his career and opened 
the way to fame and fortune. Sir Humphry Davy 
received an application from a boy for employment 
at the Royal Institution. ''What can he do?" 
inquired one of the officers. '* Let him wash bot- 
tles," replied Sir Humphry; ''if there is any 
stuff in him, he will do it thoroughly." With this 
understanding Michael Faraday was engaged and, 
in due course of time, himself became one of the 
brilliant lecturers at the institution. 



264 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

These examples are sufficient to show that every- 
one at the earHest possible moment should com- 
mence his career. The longer the delay, the 
greater the difficulty of adaptation to any particu- 
lar pursuit. We must all surely admit that the 
drudgery of a profession or of business is exceed- 
ingly onerous and unpleasant to one who has 
passed juvenility and who imagines that his latent 
merit, not his developed worth, entitles him, at the 
very outset, to a leading part in the world's play 
without subjecting him, even at first, to the duties 
of a supernumerary. There is in our day a de- 
plorable ambition to occupy the highest places 
before the lower ones have been adequately occu- 
pied. Preliminary training by not a few immature 
minds is not deemed absolutely requisite to impor- 
tant stations. They take for granted that at any 
moment they would prove equal to the handling of 
a bank, or of a mammoth business, or of a politi- 
cal party, or of a nation ; and that they are not 
called to such trusts they attribute to partial fate or 
the malignity of evil men. The result is society is 
thronged with incapables, who complain that they 
have been slighted, and who pose as the victims of 
a system, instead of recognizing the fact that they 
are the victims of abnormal self-conceit. These 
palpable failures fill the community with their dis- 
cordant reproaches and threats, whereas, if they 
had only gone resolutely to work at the beginning 
their condition would be far more desirable, and at 
least they would have learned to recognize the ster- 
ling qualities of many whose increase in capital is 
far greater than their own. 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 265 

If success is to be achieved, I must urge on 
young men the importance of adopting a definite 
and worthy aim ; for too many pursuits, and those 
which are base, inevitably lead to failure. I am 
not here writing of the means employed, but of the 
end desired. There have been and there are many 
persons who have their eyes on the prizes to be 
won — the purses, stations, dignities — and not on 
the greater grandeur of the work which ought to 
be valued more highly than the rewards. He who 
fixes his thought supremely on remuneration will 
fall far short of deserving it, though by some trick 
it may come into his possession. To succeed in 
the brewery business, in gambling, or in forging 
coin or bank paper, however prosperity may attend 
such enterprises, is not success at all. But then, 
in addition, it ought to be remembered that there 
are some vocations in which the acquisition of 
worldly gains is not a primary or leading object, 
but far otherwise. A man may be a renowned 
scholar and yet his purse be slender. He may se- 
cure the applause of all ages and still continue as 
impoverished in estate as Richter, Goldsmith, or 
Rousseau. When Abelard decided on the student's 
life, he said that he knew he was choosing the life 
of poverty. He realized that money was not every- 
thing, and that it must be sacrificed in the interests 
of the nobler callings. We likewise, even in this 
sordid age, entertain similar sentiments. The suc- 
cess of poets, preachers, philosophers, and even of 
physicians and lawyers, is not measured at the 
close of this mercenary nineteenth century by their 
pecuniary earnings and their bank accounts. In- 



26(> MESSAGES OE TO-DAY 

deed, we are somewhat suspicious of their loyalty 
to their missions and of their eminence therein if 
they seem to have had an eye to what the worldly 
wise describe as "the main chance." Perhaps in 
no pursuit ought cash to be the real aim ; but cer- 
tainlv where it is avowedlv sought hx men who 
profess better things, at least we have a right to be 
disappointed. In trade and commerce the money 
feature must always be exceedingly prominent, and 
it must be more than ordinarily difficult to escape 
from its thralldom ; but when it rules and t}Tan- 
nizes in the more spiritual domains, there is some- 
thing humiliating in the spectacle. 

Now from these reflections we may infer that 
financial increment is not indispensable to success ; 
that in some engagements such increment is rather 
a sign of failure, and that the highest callings are 
those in which such increment is not sought as the 
principal thing. ]\Iany eminent men have fully 
appreciated the soundness of these conclusions and 
have acted on them to their own happiness and to 
the advantage of societ\\ From this class I select 
one instance, not only on account of its singular 
appositeness to the subject in hand, but because it 
confirms the principle I desire to inculcate — that 
the profession which has least to expect from this 
world in the way of affluence and social elevation 
is the one most worthy of adoption. During my 
early manhood I became acquainted with one of 
the foremost preachers of the South, Dr. Richard 
Fuller. He was a devout, lovable, eloquent ser\'- 
ant of Christ, whose story is worth repeating. 
Bom of an aristocratic family, a graduate of Har- 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 26/ 

vard, he settled as a lawyer in Beaufort, S. C. His 
exceptional ability excited the warmest eulogies 
and the liveliest expectations. No distinction was 
beyond his reach, and friends predicted triumphs 
for him at the bar and in Congress. But suddenly 
every prospect was blighted. A humble minister 
of the gospel appeared in Beaufort — one of the 
wandering evangelists to whom our country owes 
so much and to whom so little honor is paid. 
The community became profoundly interested on 
the subject of religion. Richard Fuller, to the sur- 
prise of all, not only avowed himself a convert, 
but declared his purpose to enter on the work of 
the ministry. " Wherefore this waste ? " cried the 
wealthy planters, the traders, and the gold worship- 
ers ; *' why should such talents be perverted, why 
should they be alienated from the field of earthly 
ambition?" A protest arose against the fancied 
sacrifice and efforts were made to shake his decision. 
Friends remonstrated with him, but in vain. The 
Hon. William C. Preston, United States Senator, a 
representative statesman and brilliant speaker, came 
to Beaufort in the hope of influencing him to re- 
consider his action, and the following interesting 
account of the interview has been preserved : 

" Calling at his office, Mr. Preston began to 
speak with great warmth. 'Fuller,' said he, 'what 
does this mean that I hear ? Are you crazy ? 
Have you become a fanatic? Giving up your 
prospects at the bar and in public life to become 
a preacher? It seems impossible. Let me per- 
suade you to act rationally and give up this singu- 
lar and, it seems to me, morbid purpose.' 



268 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

'' Mr. Fuller listened quietly, and then said : 
* Preston, I was living a selfish life, eager only to 
win success and have a great name among men. 
Religion never entered my thoughts, and I was 
negligent of all duty to God. Suddenly my eyes 
opened. I discovered God's great love. I saw 
that Jesus Christ had left heaven and come to earth 
and died to win my love. This act has so im- 
pressed me that, as a man of honor, I can do 
nothing else but love him in return, and put my 
life at his service. It does not seem to me that 
this is irrational.' 

'*Mr. Preston was a man of tender feelings. 
The earnest words touched him. The conversa- 
tion continued for some time, and in leaving Pres- 
ton grasped his friend's hand and said with utter- 
ance half choked, ' Fuller, I think you are right. 
You are the rational man, and we are all irra- 
tional' " 

This impressive scene hardly calls for comment; 
but the final words of the senator are intensely 
significant and may be profitably pondered. Who 
are the rational? or, in other words, What is the 
highest aim in life ? Is it the material or the spir- 
itual ? Does it consist in striving for the accumu- 
lation of wealth, or in something else, and in 
something very different ? According to Mr. Pres- 
ton, this man who turned his back on fortune and 
who was destined to die poor, was acting more 
wisely than himself and consequently would achieve 
success, if at all successful, immeasurable by stocks 
and bonds or by credit on the marts of trade. 

A definite career should be chosen as early in 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 269 

life as possible, and should be tenaciously followed. 
This, I admit, is not always feasible. Mr. Glad- 
stone had decided preferences for the church in his 
youth, while Frederick Robertson was strongly im- 
pelled by his tastes toward the army. And yet 
the former became a religious statesman, and the 
latter a soldierly priest. Aptitudes are not always 
discoverable at the outset. They may reveal them- 
selves slowly, and may only be drawn out by pe- 
culiar circumstances. But making due allowance 
for these contingencies, the principle yet holds that 
one vocation ought to be adopted at the beginning 
and be held to vigorously and unwaveringly. Hes- 
itancy, vacillation, variableness, fickleness, are fatal 
to ascendency in any pursuit. He who tries to do 
many varieties of things, who attempts contradictory 
roles^ who undertakes one part and then another in 
life's busy drama, will in the long run discover that 
he has made a mistake. Never will he reach the 
highest rank in any of his endeavors. Respectable 
mediocrity may be attained in one thing or another, 
but nothing very remarkable, and very probably he 
will be a disastrous failure in everything he essays. 
Some one has written about ''the fatal gift of 
beauty" ; but the gift of ''smartness" is equally 
fatal. When a lad has an ear for music, a taste for 
drawing, with a facility for execution ; and when he 
is, in addition, endowed with a good memory and 
considerable fluency of speech, he has so many 
aptitudes that he will be in danger of dabbling 
here and there, and of winding up as a dilettante, 
a faddist, or as something else equally flimsy and 
unsatisfactory. Better not be "smart," my young 



2/0 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

friend, if you cannot curb yourself and apply your- 
self to the performance of a specific task. Be on 
your guard. Your very brightness may dazzle you 
and lead you to destruction. He who tries every 
road in a forest will scarcely ever find his way 
through the woods. He who continually varies his 
course most likely will be wrecked through his own 
indecision. I would much rather take the chances 
of that stolid, plodding, persevering youth than I 
would yours, my brilliant chameleon. He is not 
smart. He knows it ; and therefore realizes that, 
if he succeeds at all, he must stick to one calling. 
Who is he that he should presume to try more 
than one ? Possibly, by dint of hard work, he 
may present a passable appearance in his chosen 
profession ; not much more, he thinks. And yet 
in thirty years he may be chief justice ; and you, 
my clever fellow? Well, unless you turn over a 
new leaf, you will be a little of many things and not 
much of anything. 

Another suggestion : Young men, you must not 
allow yourselves to be dismayed or deterred by 
early disadvantages. However serious they may 
be, you should not permit them to weigh too 
heavily on your mind and energies. Do not forget 
that difficulty is only another name for discipline, 
and that discipline ought always to mean develop- 
ment. President Garfield is reported to have said : 
" In nine times out of ten the best thing that can 
happen to a youth is for him to be tossed over- 
board and be compelled to sink or swim. In all 
my acquaintance I have never known a man to be 
drowned who was worth saving." It will be found 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 2/1 

that as many persons have accomplished great 
things and built up enormous properties in the face 
of adverse circumstances as have achieved similar 
results under favorable conditions. The immortal 
hymn, ''Veni Sancte Spiritus,'" which has comforted 
millions of believers and to have composed which was 
a work demanding the highest gifts of thought and 
expression, though attributed to King Robert IL, 
Pope Innocent III., and to other notable person- 
ages, was written in the eleventh century by a 
poor cripple, Hermannus Contractus, of Reichenau. 
This unfortunate man only lived forty-one years. 
He was hump-backed, lame, was partially paralyzed 
from his birth, and was never entirely free from 
pain. And yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, 
he became a reliable historian, a fine musician, and 
was equally at home in philosophy, theology, mathe- 
matics, and astronomy. 

Another lifelong cripple, Mary Webb, of Boston, 
overcame her natural disabilities. She moved about 
in a perambulator, started the first Sunday-school 
and the first mission society in her city, and was to 
multitudes an angel of goodness. Who could have 
supposed that the now famous Metzer, who has 
treated more royal personages than any other phy- 
sician in Europe, had moved up to his present ex- 
alted rank from a butcher's stall ? Nevertheless 
such is the fact. He was born in Holland, the son of 
parents who belonged to the lower classes, and was 
apprenticed to a dealer in meat. Being thought- 
fully disposed, he applied himself to the study of the 
anatomy of the animals he cut up for customers. 
He especially investigated the structure, locality, and 



2/2 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



functions of the muscular system ; and when he had 
saved money enough to pursue his education, at- 
tended school, and since then has made a specialty 
of what at the first so powerfully charmed him. In 
his department he is probably without a peer ; but 
he never could have attained his present eminence if 
he had been daunted by the obstacles in his way at 
the beginning, or had even paused to measure their 
extent Neither could Faraday, to whom I have 
already referred, have excelled if he had not been 
contented in his wretched surroundings. But he 
knew that Sir Humphr}- Davy was of lowly ori- 
gin, was self-taught and self-made, and had con- 
quered for himself his place in the scientific world. 
What the renowned chemist had done the boy felt 
he could do, and he tried. While apprenticed to 
a bookbinder he devoted himself to reading, and 
declined to share his spare hours with his fellow- 
workmen, v\'ho indulged in smoking and card-play- 
ing. In these times of trial and perplexity he 
prepared himself, in no small degree, for the future 
by constructing an electrical machine which arrested 
the attention of a member of the Royal Society 
and became the means of his obtaining a position 
there as a washer of bottles. He had throughout 
to overcome impediments of the most appalling 
nature, — ignorance, povert\^^ social obscurit}^, and 
even physical infirmities, — but he succeeded. 

It may be said that these are exceptional cases. 
Individuals are prone to assume that, as many blos- 
soms perish and few are changed to fruit, in spite 
of energy and earnestness there are not many lives 
in which these high qualities can possibly be set 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 2/3 

into the fruit of large prosperity. I cannot con- 
cede what this representation implies. The path 
may be barred by stupendous difficulties, but I 
have yet to be convinced that honest determination 
to press forward at any cost has failed of its re- 
ward. The story of Dodsley, weaver's apprentice 
and footman, who became a famous playwright and 
prosperous publisher; and that of Edward Bird, 
who, by his own energy, rose from being a tea-tray 
painter to a foremost place among modern artists ; 
and that of Josiah V/edgwood, a lame, unedu- 
cated, and neglected potter boy, who increased 
not only in goods, but exalted his trade almost to 
the level of a fine art; and that of Thomas 
Brassey, who began life breaking stones by the 
roadside, but contrived to make a fortune and to 
be made a baron — all run in the same key and 
have the same moral, namely, that there is really 
nothing impossible to the indomitable worker. 

I have not cited illustrious examples of this truth 
from among Americans ; for the fact is it would be 
difficult to make a choice where, in nearly every 
case, the successful man has been compelled to 
rely on himself and has had enormous hindrances 
to contend against. Here and there our leaders 
may have enjoyed family advantages, but the large 
majority have had to blaze their own way through 
the tangled wilderness to the open plains beyond. 
The Lincolns, the Garfields, the Johnsons, the Van- 
derbilts, the Stewarts, the Rockefellers, the Ar- 
mours, and hosts of others were of humble origin, 
and were to all intents and purposes friendless. So 
numerous have been our self-made men that there 



274 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

is almost a prejudice against those who are made 
in any other way. An average American, I think, 
would have more doubts as to the success of a boy 
born and reared in the aristocratic circles of our 
cities than he would have of a lad reared on the 
prairies of Illinois or among the ** White Hills" of 
New Hampshire. This sort of class bias may be 
carried altogether too far, and do manifest injustice 
to many noble souls who have had the misfortune 
to be born rich ; but as an indication, it is worth 
something. It is a protest against weaklings and a 
logical and robust declaration that there are no 
mountains impassable to the fearless climber, and 
no height inaccessible to the heroic toiler. He 
who does not realize this will be alarmed at mole- 
hills, and, yielding to what appears unpropitious cir- 
cumstances, will be defeated in advance of any gen- 
uine difficulty or trial. 

My youthful friends, if you are to succeed, make 
up your minds that it shall be only through the 
use of legitimate and honorable methods. Sir 
Thomas Fowell Buxton has left behind him, in a 
few words, a statement of the only course that 
ought to be followed in business. He says: "I 
had been a boy fond of pleasure and idleness. 
But a change took place and I became a youth of 
steady habits, of application, and of irresistible 
resolution. I soon gained the ground I had lost, 
and I found those things impossible to my idleness 
possible to my industry ; and much of my happi- 
ness and all of my prosperity is due to the change 
I made." "This is the way; walk ye in it." 
Herein we have a rebuke of those individuals who 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 2/5 

imagine that they can achieve by accident and ac- 
quire by hazard. 

A capital story is told of Sir Christopher North, 
that illustrates this singular confidence in the fav- 
orable outcome of the fortuitous and casual. He 
had spent nearly all day fishing in a Highland 
tarn. Toward evening a shepherd and his dog 
appeared on the scene and pensively watched 
him. **Ye'll not have taken any trout, sir?" 
respectfully inquired the shepherd. "No, I have 
had no sport at all, not a nibble," replied the 
lone fisherman. "I say No," continued the keeper 
of sheep, **for it is well known there never was 
any trout in that water from the beginning of 
creation." When one goes after fish, it is well, 
first of all, to ascertain whether there are any fish 
to go after ; and when one is about to engage in 
any pursuit, it is well to consider its promise of re- 
muneration in advance, and, what is of equal 
moment, our own fitness to follow it up to an 
advantageous conclusion. 

An indispensable condition to true success is 
thoroughness. Details must not be neglected and 
veneering must not be tolerated. 

Drive deep the furrow in the sluggish soil, 
E' en to the rock force in the laboring share ; 

Earth, that with starveling ears mocks niggard toil, 
To pain and strife will golden harvests bear. 

And what is true of the field is equally true of the 
conduct of life. The class described by Gibbon, 
as "well remembering the salary to be received, 
but always forgetting the duty to be performed," 



2/6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

is foreordained to disaster and defeat. Hon. 
Chauncey M. Depew relates the story of a visit he 
paid the mechanical department of Cornell Uni- 
versity, which, with an editorial comment,^ may be 
taken as an illustration of the better way the his- 
torian Gibbon had in mind when he penned his 
note of warning: **He found at the head of it Pro- 
fessor Morris, who claimed him as a superior offi- 
cer, giving as a reason that he was an old-time 
worker on the New York Central Railroad. ' How 
did you get here?' asked Depew. *I fired on 
the New York Central. I stood on the footboard 
as an engineer on the Central. While a locomo- 
tive engineer I made up my mind to get an educa- 
tion. I studied at night, and fitted myself for 
Union College, running all the time with my loco- 
motive. I procured books, and attended as far as 
possible the lectures and recitations. I kept up 
with my class, and on the day of graduation I left 
my locomotive, washed up, put on the gown and 
cap, delivered my thesis, and received my diploma, 
put the gown and cap in the closet, put on my 
working shirt, got on my engine, and made my 
usual run that day.' 'Then,' says Depew, *I knew 
how he became Professor Morris.' That spirit 
will cause a man to rise anywhere and in any 
calling. It is ambition, but it is ambition wisely 
directed, aiming not at the goal — for such an 
ambition produces envy, scheming, discontent, 
and weakness — but bravely and cheerily aiming 
at one's self, seeking to make one's self fitted for 

^ "Commonwealth," Phila. 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 2// 

higher work. When this is accompHshed the op- 
portunity for higher work is sure to come." 

A boy was on one occasion employed to keep 
the gate of meadow land closed that the grass might 
not be injured by the troop of transgressing horses. 
As he stood guard, the Duke of Wellington, who 
had been hunting, rode up and requested a pas- 
sage. ** I cannot," replied the young sentry; '*my 
master has ordered me not to let any one go 
through the gate." ''But perhaps you don't know 
who I am. I am the Duke of Wellington." Noth- 
ing abashed, the lad responded, '' I don't mind 
who you are, sir, my duty is to keep the gate 
shut." "Bravo!" exclaimed the soldier, '-'such 
faithfulness deserves a reward;" and handing the 
peasant half a sovereign, he rode on another way. 
Exactness and attention to minute matters are ele- 
ments in the thoroughness that not only commands 
admiration, but almost commands fortune. How 
apparent is this in the career of notable men ! The 
autobiography of General Butler, recently pub- 
lished, is remarkably full and instructive on this 
point. We have here the story of a New Eng- 
land boy setting out with the odds against him and 
overcoming by the force of an invincible will and 
by constant and careful consideration of the things 
needful to be done. The hero is not indebted to 
genius for what he has made of himself, but to 
shrewd, hard, practical common sense. He is no 
trifler, no whififler, no dauber with untempered 
mortar, and he is too profoundly in earnest to be 
superficial in his methods. No one can read this 
life without being filled with enthusiasm, at least 



2/8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

for thoroughness, even if some of its details excite 
something other than admiration. We are also 
moved to warmest satisfaction when we find in a 
contemporary journal this encomium on an Ameri- 
can boy who could, had he so willed, have gone 
into life without any particular preparation for its 
duties : '' All honor to that son of a millionaire 
who followed up a successful college course with 
training in the machine shop, then took his place 
as fireman on a locomotive, then learned to run an 
engine. It is safe to say that there will be fewer 
strikes on the railroad in which the family have a 
large interest, that there will be more intelligent 
sympathy between employers and employed, and 
that the returns in money will not be lessened. 
The young man does honor to the name of the 
father whose memorial is the well-known Pratt In- 
stitute, of Brooklyn, N. Y." 

A similar feeling comes to us as we study the 
biographies of Professor William Cullen, of Edin- 
burgh University, and of the famous brothers, Wil- 
liam and John Hunter. These three remarkable 
men influenced each other while they were yet 
youths. The first named managed to get a start 
in an apothecary's shop in Hamilton and, while 
struggling in that community, became acquainted 
with a divinity student, William Hunter. This 
friendship led Hunter to study medicine. The 
young men formed a partnership, and one waited 
on the shop while the other studied. Thus alter- 
nating and by wise frugality they made their way 
in the world. From these small beginnings Cullen 
attained to one of the foremost lectureships in Edin- 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 2/9 

burgh, while Hunter acquired deserved celebrity as 
a physician. John, the brother of the famous Lon- 
don doctor, had a similar battle to wage against pov- 
erty and various disabilities, and yet he became the 
greatest surgeon in England, and his discoveries are 
said to have elevated what was little better than a 
mechanical art to the rank of science. But such re- 
markable results would not have followed had there 
not been downright honesty both of purpose and 
method. This seeking after perfection is, at heart, 
genuinely ethical. Integrity is its governing genius. 
Slovenly, slipshod, superficial ways of attending to 
business are repugnant to high-minded men be- 
cause they indicate a low moral sense, an essen- 
tially dishonest basis of character. All tricks, 
frauds, cheats in trade, are merely devices more 
or less skillful to avoid doing completely and sin- 
cerely what we profess to be doing. It shows the 
thievish spirit as much to slight your work as to 
give short measure or to adulterate food. When, 
therefore, I urge thoroughness as the main and 
legitimate condition of success, I necessarily in- 
clude in it uprightness in all transactions and trans- 
parent rectitude in all plans and enterprises. 

But probably I shall be reminded that many 
persons have secured the golden reward for which 
men strive, whose honesty, judged by an adequate 
standard, is not beyond criticism. Instances prac- 
tically endless could be adduced to show that by 
dark ways and by unworthy tricks large fortunes 
have been amassed. The facts I do not question, 
but the influence I challenge. The reality of suc- 
cess is not to be determined solely by the total 



280 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

value of the possession, but by the means of ac- 
quisition as well. Suppose a man retires to Canada 
with a million dollars purloined from a confiding 
and frugal public, will he be entitled to rank as a 
success among honorable men ? Far from it. We 
think of him as a ruined man and as a failure, 
though he has carried off a prize. Suppose I 
climb Mont Blanc and exhaust my vitality as I 
reach the summit. Well, I am at the top, but I am 
dead. What kind of success is that, I should like 
to know? Were I entrusted with the command of 
an ocean steamer and in crossing the Atlantic, to 
lighten the leaky vessel I threw the cargo over- 
board and the passengers one by one, would I rank 
high as a navigator, even though I did manage to 
bring the ship to port? What opinion would be 
formed of my success ? Would you not vote me 
a disastrous failure ? So we judge men who have 
grown rich by foul means. They have gained the 
harbor ; they have reached the summit ; they are 
at the top ; but to attain their position they have 
expended all the spiritual vitality they ever had. 
They have thrown overboard honesty, truthfulness, 
and fair dealing. I think of them as I do of bal- 
loons that go up rapidly in proportion as the bal- 
last is cast out. Just in proportion as the solid 
virtues of character have been sacrificed these 
gentlemen have ascended ; but let them not dis- 
guise the fact that they have no foundation under 
them at all and, in a moral universe, are in immi- 
nent peril of collapse. Alas, for the failures that 
dress with the best and feed with the most delicate, 
and that are toasted at banquets as those who de- 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 28 1 

serve the laurel and the bays of fortune wherewith 
they have crowned themselves, and who yet know 
deep down in their own hearts what lamentable 
bankrupts they are in all high and noble things. 

How did Napoleon III. feel when he went forth 
from Paris on that ever-memorable march toward 
irretrievable disaster ? Emperor, chief of a great 
nation, head of a glorious army, everywhere recog- 
nized as the most wonderful political success of the 
century, had he not in the very center of his being 
a crushing sense of his own impotence — the result 
of bloody and traitorous means employed to win a 
throne, and of equally pernicious expedients to 
maintain its glory? Not a real king, this one; 
rather a *' thing of shreds and patches," a phantas- 
magoria of royalty, whose simulacrum was pro- 
claimed to the veracious universe at Sedan. The 
lesson had to be taught— not yet learned by the 
age, unhappily — that the glitter, coronations, pal- 
aces, thrones, and highest places among the mag- 
nates of the earth, when achieved by fraud, are 
only tokens of a stupendous failure — a failure that 
shall inevitably be exposed — as the disastrous ca- 
reer of the emperor, disastrous to himself and 
others, has found terribly faithful chronicles in 
the "History of a Crime," by Victor Hugo, and 
in the ''Downfall," or more literally, the "Smash- 
up," by Emile Zola. 

But if the emotions of a modern prince whose 
mind and policy were, to all intents and purposes, 
patterned after the "Prince" portrayed by Machi- 
avelli, are too subtle for a bourgeois age to fathom, 
what of the agitation experienced by a leading 



282 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

business house, when its foremost representa- 
tive is deposed for crooked ways from a Board of 
Trade? Could the feeHngs of the firm be appre- 
ciated when the exposure came, which in reahty 
compromised its own standing and which might 
have resulted more seriously had not a scapegoat 
been at hand ? All parties concerned in the reve- 
lation, and all persons remotely or otherwise con- 
nected with the blameworthy transaction, and all 
the members of the firm, however individually clear 
of complicity, must surely have indulged in some 
wholesome reflections on the subject of success. 
They may have inquired whether, after all, enor- 
mous trade and immoderate receipts are signs of 
triumphant achievement, if back of them and neces- 
sary to them are schemes and processes that will 
not bear the light of day and which are offensive 
to every upright soul? It may have occurred to 
them that men may be ruined in character and 
honor when seeking success in business ; and in 
view of the chasm suddenly opened before them, 
and which threatened to engulf the material pros- 
perity they have been striving for, they may have 
perceived the everlasting truth that no fortune is 
good fortune that entails the misfortune of a bank- 
rupt reputation. 

But in addition to all this, men of to-morrow, if 
you have made up your minds to succeed, you 
ought to realize that the greatness of the success 
will be impaired should you by it be spoiled or de- 
luded. When you have achieved, what then ? 
Admitting that the weapons you have employed in 
the conflict have not been explosive bullets or 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 263 

poisoned arrows, but such as are allowed in honor- 
able warfare, what effort has your victory had upon 
yourself and to what use are you devoting its tro- 
phies ? Have your triumphs made of you — excuse 
the bluntness — a fool ? Here may again be read 
with advantage the lines of Derzhaven ; for if your 
prosperity has blinded, and if the glitter of rank 
and wealth has destroyed in you ''wise enlightened 
love," and "made you slothful in good works," then 
you have fallen into a pitiable plight for which there 
is no compensation in plethoric money-bags. Have 
you ever heard the clever epigram?— 

When Jack was poor, the lad was frank and free ; 

Of late he' s grown brimful of pride and pelf ; 
You wonder that he don't remember me? 

Why, don' t you see, Jack has forgot himself. 

The story ^ is told of a gentleman who had been 
promoted at court, and who, on a friend's approach- 
ing to congratulate him, haughtily inquired, ''Who 
are you, and why do you come here?" To this 
superciliousness the visitor replied, " Do you not 
know me then? I am your old friend, and I have 
come to condole with you, having heard that you 
had lately lost your sights It is perhaps not alto- 
gether strange that prosperous people should lose 
their heads and be completely dazzled when they be- 
hold society bowing before them as idols full of what 
Carlyle terms "preciosities." They are treated so 
frequently as creatures of superior clay that they 
overlook their native affinity with dust. To amass 

1 *' Flowers from a Persian Garden." 



284 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

a fortune by genuine methods is undoubtedly proof 
of capacit}^ and of personal worth ; but believe me, 
it does not qualify a man to teach others law, 
medicine, or divinit\^ Yet with what slavish defer- 
ence are the opinions of rich magnates received, 
and how frequently these nabobs conclude that 
skill in manipulating stocks or in cornering bacon 
and lard has somehow imparted to them the right 
of speaking with authority on the most intricate 
questions in diplomac}^, sociolog}^, and theology. 
Where do manhood and dignit}^ go when we be- 
come parties to this sycophantic adulation of wealth, 
and where is our intelligence in hanging on the 
opinions of those who are as ignorant as they are 
purse-proud? Millionaires are not, then, altogether 
blamable for their too common self-conceit and pre- 
sumption. They breathe an atmosphere impreg- 
nated with flatter}^, and thousands are anxious **for 
thrift to follow fawning," and consequently "bend 
the hinges of the knee." When Hotspur complains 
of the faithlessness of Henry IV., his own account of 
the praises lavished on the youth who came to gain 
his own as Duke of Lancaster readily explains how 
success might have blinded the victorious prince to 
the merits of his adherents and opened his eyes to 
his own pre-eminent virtue : 

The more and less came in with cap and knee, 

Met him in boroughs, cities, villages, 

Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, 

Laid gifts before him, proffered him their oaths 



He presently, as greatness knows itself, 
Steps me a little higher than his vow 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 285 

Made to my father, when his blood was poor, 
Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg. 



In short time after he depos' d the king ; 
Soon after that, depriv' d him of his Hfe. 



Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong. 
And, in conclusion, drove us to seek out 
This head of safety. 

This is very fine as an address and the only 
illogical part is the conclusion. Why take up arms 
against an insufferable assumption, when it pro- 
ceeded from his and his father's foolish flattery and 
almost abject subserviency? These Percys fill this 
Lancastrian prince with notions of superexcellence, 
and when he treats them accordingly, they fall out 
with him and rush into bloody rebellion. As we 
condemn them, let us not exonerate ourselves 
from blame when, through our obsequiousness and 
cringing capitulation to the opinions of the afflu- 
ent we lead them to think more highly of them- 
selves than they ought to think. Sometimes when 
I meet with wealthy, arrogant, and vulgar nobodies, 
I recall a vigorous type of Western humanity who 
seemed to take a ghoulish delight in reminding his 
parvenu associates of their decidedly plebeian origin. 
I have heard him in a crowded room, during a 
fashionable reception, greet a haughty dame with 
the remark: ''Well, Nancy, this is something better 
than taking boarders, or driving a hack. Those 
old days were pretty hard. Let us forget them." 
Then the old gentleman would chuckle as he saw 



286 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

dismay depicted on the face of Nancy, who in her 
own esteem was equal to a duchess at least. 

Of course, we do not approve this ill-breeding; 
but I presume there are times when even rude 
means may be tolerated if they only make pros- 
perous upstarts realize their true level. If you, my 
young friends, grow into riches, do not, I pray you, 
forget the less successful acquaintances of your ear- 
lier years. Let your conduct rather be patterned 
after the example of Mr. George W. Childs, of 
Philadelphia. Mr. Childs said, as published in the 
''Boston Journal" : "When I was a boy I have 
often stood on the sidewalk in front of the store, 
resting mv tired hand on mv broomstick, and I 
have seen Air. Graham, the famous publisher, drive 
up to his business house in his carriage, and I have 
wondered whether I should ever reach such a point 
in my struggle for existence." The article con- 
tinues the interesting narrative in the following 
words : " Mr. Graham's Philadelphia home was the 
Mecca for all famous literar}^ visitors to town, and 
there he entertained in sumptuous style the great- 
est literary lights which American literature has 
ever known. And to-day? Lying in a hospital 
in the interior of New Jersey is the once successful 
publisher of 'Graham's Magazine,' and the friend 
and entertainer of his great contemporaries. Sick 
and nearly blind, he is almost entirely forgotten by 
the world, which hears nothing of him. And the 
boy who stood with his hand on his broom on the 
curb envying his lot ? But for the generosity^ of 
George W. Childs, sad indeed would be the lot of 
the forgotten publisher. All his bills are paid by 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 28/ 

Mr. Childs, every comfort is given him — all met 
from the purse of him who was a poor boy when 
Graham was a great publisher and editor ! Talk 
about the ups and downs of a literary life !" 

The moral of this pathetic story lies in the evi- 
dence it directly affords, that a man need not be 
spoiled by success. Mr. Childs was not. He con- 
tinued as he began — simple, straightforward, and 
sincere. Never did he give himself airs because 
of his extraordinary success, but was to the last 
modest, unobtrusive, manly, and yet childlike. Of 
him may be written what was penned by one famous 
Frenchman of another : '' Et monte sur le faite, il 
aspire a descendre'' (''Standing on the summit, he 
aspired to descend" ). How different the spirit re- 
vealed in this sentence from that of the first Napo- 
leon, who, on receiving a letter while in Egypt 
from a member of the Institute, beginning, '* Mo7t 
cher Collegue,'' crushed it impatiently in his hand 
and scornfully exclaimed, ^' Mon cher CoUegue, quel 
style!'' Had he, also, aspired to descend, he 
might not have felt so lonely at St. Helena ; and 
had he worn his laurels with more meekness, he 
might have submitted to the thorns with more dig- 
nified and composed heroism. 

The question has been asked more than once, 
What is the use of rich men? and the ordinary 
answers have not been complimentary and have 
had in them something of the dynamite explosive- 
ness which brought Russell Sage to a dim con- 
sciousness that his existence was not deemed by 
every person imperatively necessaiy to the welfare of 
the community. Without entering into this interest- 



288 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

ing controversy, except to observe that the poorest 
use to which they can be put is to kill them, I would 
impress on my youthful readers, now presumably 
without large worldly estates, that when they shall 
have accumulated much, society will expect much 
from them. If a man succeeds as a doctor, law- 
yer, teacher, or writer, the world brings its blind, 
halt, and lame, and lays them at his feet, and de- 
mands that he shall heal them without money and 
without price. He must pay in gratuitous semce 
rendered to the unfortunate for the dignity and 
standing he enjoys, and what he does is often passed 
without recognition. If the minister gives hours 
in helping the strangers who have no real claims 
on him, or if the doctor spends half a day in suc- 
coring unremunerative patients, and if they and 
others give much of time and strength to the cause 
of philanthropy — while they may be commended 
as amiable, individually, their services are never 
valued so highly by the general public, nor spoken 
of in such eulogistic phrases as is the cash be- 
stowed by the millionaire on the needy. His ben- 
efactions are duly published and extolled, while 
theirs is prized mainly by the recipients, and not 
always -by them. No person, whether a profes- 
sional or business man, ever attained notable suc- 
cess without the aid of the community — aid, of 
course, not always consciously or voluntarily ren- 
dered. If he invests in property, the general in- 
dustry of the community adds to its value ; and if 
he wins fame through his literar}^ work, it is due to 
the taste and patronage of the people at large ; 
hence, when he is placed beyond the reach of 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 289 

want, he is bound to make some adequate return. 
While the obhgation thus created is binding on 
professional men, it ought to be recognized by 
affluent merchants and traders. They receive 
louder applause for whatever benefits they confer, 
and they certamly ought to be ready to do in pro- 
portion to their resources. Dr. Johnson, contem- 
plating the treasures accumulated by Garrick, ex- 
claimed with a sigh : ''Ah, Davie, Davie, these are 
the things that make a death-bed terrible." And 
old Herrick, in the '* Hesperides," commenting on 
the fading loveliness of nature, impressively sings : 

But you are lovely leaves, where we 

May read, how soon things have 

Their end, tho' ne' er so brave ; 
And after they have shown their pride, 
Like you, awhile, they glide 
Into the grave. 

They who do not understand this; and who are 
not concerned to turn their riches to the account 
of the needy and unfortunate, are only miserable 
failures. They are like men who have graduated in 
medicine, but who will not consent to heal a pa- 
tient ; like men who are expert navigators, but who 
refuse to steer a belated, captainless vessel to the 
desired haven ; or like a soldier who has won his 
general's commission and renown, and who, in the 
crisis of a grave campaign, like the unhappy Bara- 
tieri in Africa, abandons his troops, withholding 
from them the benefit of his skill and courage. It 
should ever be remembered that money brings 
with it responsibility, as well as intelligence, genius, 

T 



290 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

or rank. Better remain poor than not employ 
acquired wealth wisely and humanely. Lord Clar- 
endon wrote over the door of an Elizabethan 
castle, ^^ Bene vixit qui latuif (he has lived well 
who has escaped notice) ; which, in a sense, may 
be true enough; but it is better to be ''noticed" 
and still to live well. Prosperity in business ren- 
ders a man conspicuous. It cannot be otherwise. 
Happy, then, is the millionaire if he knows how 
to use his gilded prominence in making the world 
purer and nobler. And it is a source of gratifica- 
tion that one of the most valuable lessons being 
taught the twentieth century by the nineteenth is 
just this. During the past fifty years innumera- 
ble examples have been presented of wealth con- 
secrated to the public weal. The names of Pea- 
body, Shaftesbury, Baron Hirsch, George W. Childs, 
Montefiore, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Elisha S. Con- 
verse, Felix Potin, Madame Boucicault, and a host 
of others, will occur to the reader, and at least sug- 
gest the gradual awakening of successful business 
men to the greatness of their opportunity and the 
solemnity of their obligation. If the present 
quickening shall continue, and if conscience and 
compassion shall continue to untie the purse-strings 
of the affluent, then it may come to pass that the 
gains won from society in the course of trade shall 
return to society again in the course of wise and 
generous philanthropy ; and what has been received 
in the form of cash, bonds, and mortgages be re- 
stored in the shape of schools, universities, art col- 
lections, libraries, and in the hundred and more 
sweet charities which beautify and exalt existence. 



ACHIEVING WORLDLY SUCCESS 29 1 

There is near Naples a place called the Grotta 
della Cava, — ''Grotto of the cave," — remarkable 
for its poisonous atmosphere. Various descrip- 
tions have been given of this spot, and from one 
of these I gather that the danger arises from the 
prevalence of carbonic acid gas. But -the cave 
can be visited with safety if its conditions are 
understood ; for the gas being heavier than the 
air, only rises some three feet above the ground ; 
consequently, if an explorer will only stand up- 
right, no serious harm will befall him ; but should 
he be foolish enough to lie down, death would 
be the immediate penalty. He is safe so long 
as he keeps his head above the deadly sea through 
which he walks ; but if he sinks he is lost indeed. 
Such an atmosphere as this surrounds success, 
both in the seeking and in the using, and only 
he who walks straight, with his head toward the 
stars, can escape asphyxiation. Earthly pursuits 
are cursed with strata of penetrating poison, and 
the greatest care is imperative if the evil is to 
be evaded. Ennobling ideals, spiritual aspirations, 
and lofty purposes, are requisite if the worker is 
not to be dragged down and his diviner nature stifled 
in him. Therefore, if any man covets worldly suc- 
cess — the success I have attempted to sketch in 
these pages — let me commend to him the religion 
of Jesus Christ. That will be found the truest and 
worthiest of helpers. It will not only stimulate to 
attempt, but it will restrain from acquiring improp- 
erly, and it will prompt to such chivalrous employ- 
ment of wealth as must tend to the well-being of 
mankind. The poet thus hymns my thought : 



292 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; 

Do noble things, not dream them all day long ; 
And so make life, death, and that vast forever 

One grand sweet song. 

But never forget that the music has been composed 
for this ''"sweet song" by Christ and his apostles ; 
and that you must follow this self-same time and 
take the keynote from their example, if its gracious 
melody is to thrill the air with gladness, and linger, 
when you are no more, to charm the weary toiler 
on to true and high achievement. 



IX 

ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 

Vve heard that poison-sprinkled Jlowers 

Are sweeter in perfuj?ie 
Than when, untouched by deadly dew. 

They opened in their bloom. 
Tve heard that with the witches' song. 

Though harsh and rude it be. 
There blends a wild, mysterious strain 

Of weirdest harmony ; 
So that the lisf ner far away 

Must needs approach the ring. 
Where, on the savage Lapland moorSy 

The demon chorus sing. 
And I believe the deviPs voice 

Sinks deeper in the ear 
Than any whispers sent from heaven^ 

However soft and clear. 

I ALSO have heard all that Aytoun had heard in 
his day ; and if I cannot go so far as he in his 
mournful strains, I am still as fully persuaded that 
there is a fascination in the voice of evil, especially 
when it proceeds from an attractive personality 
that is well-nigh irresistible. The moral of which 
is : Be careful in the choice of companions, and do 
not yield to that which chimes in with your moods 
and tastes and which charms your eye and ear with- 
out challenge and serious consideration. Remem- 
ber that like answers like, and that if vice attracts 
more strongly than virtue there are reasons to sus- 
pect an indwelling affinity for the former. 

293 



294 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

No human being really stands alone. While, as 
in the case of certain flowering parasites, each in- 
dividual grows from his roots, he needs support as 
they do and instinctively cleaves to living organ- 
isms. Samuel Smiles has well said that even^ man 
" is a component part of a system of mutual de- 
pendencies, and by his several acts he either in- 
creases or diminishes the sum of good now and 
forever." He "is a fruit formed and ripened by 
the culture of all the foregoing centuries. Genera- 
tions six thousand years deep stand behind us, each 
laying its hands upon its successor's shoulders, and 
the livincr veneration continues the magnetic cur- 
rent of action and example destined to bind the 
remotest past with the most distant future." This 
thought renders intelligible the saying of Cicero, 
that "friends, though dead, are alive" ; and which 
he illustrates by reference to one of the noblest 
of Roman heroes: "To me, indeed, Scipio still 
lives, and will alwa}'S li\-e ; for I love the virtue of 
that man, and his worth is not yet extinguished." 
Yes ; even as John Sterling wrote : 

Ever their phantoms rise before us, 

Our loftier brothers, but one in blood ; 

By bed and table they lord it o' er us, 

With looks of beaut)- and words of good. 

But while it is true that we are related to all the 
ages, and while the extraordinary^ personages of the 
past tower above us and entrance us as the snow 
summits of mountain ranges, we should not forget 
that we are as vitally allied to our contemporaries. 
We may affect an independence of others not jus- 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 295 

tified by the facts of our position in the world and 
to give it emphasis we may profess a passion for soli- 
tude. But what is the latent assumption beneath 
this craving for self-isolation? Obviously, the per- 
son considers himself self-sufficient and regards the 
gregarious instinct as annihilative of his individual- 
ity. Was it a suspicion of this egoism that prompted 
the old Greek assertion that one who lives alone is 
either a god or a wild beast — ^ 6ed^ fj drjpiov. 
Very likely the astute Hellenist discerned the weak- 
ness of those who assumed to scorn their fellow- 
men and withdrew from their society. Not but 
that it is of value to retire for study and medita- 
tion and for occasional communion with one's own 
soul ; for, as Sir Thomas Browne remarks, *' un- 
thinking heads who have not learnt to be alone are 
a prison to themselves if they be not with others ; 
whereas, on the contrary, those whose thoughts are 
in a fair and hurry within are sometimes fain to re- 
tire into company to be out of the crowd of them- 
selves." But while it is wholesome to escape from 
the turmoil and rush of the clamorous and contend- 
ing multitudes for a few hours of sacred loneliness 
among the hills or by ocean's forsaken beach, we 
ought not to delude ourselves with the idle fancy 
that we can get along as well without our fellow- 
beings as with them ; or that we can in reality and 
effectually evade the law of solidarity which unites 
their interests with our own. It is next to impos- 
sible for any one to live in entire seclusion, and 
fatal consequences have often followed where so 
unnatural a condition has been forced upon a 
human being. Solitary confinement has more than 



296 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

once crazed the unfortunate prisoner. In England 
many lunatics have been from the rural districts, 
and it has been alleged by physicians that their 
disease may be traced to lack of intimacies and 
intercourse. It is also believed that the distem- 
pered imagination of the anchorites that peopled 
deserts with angels and devils was caused by their 
separation from the world ; and it has been sug- 
gested that, as the soul yearns for fellowships, the 
pious fanatics who would not w^elcome those that 
were real, necessarily, by a law of their being, 
created those that were ^fantastic and visionary. 
Even the supposition that the Almighty may be 
compelled by the grandeur of his own being to 
dwell by himself apart fills the mind of George 
MacDonald with pitying solicitude ; and feeling 
acutely what such desolateness must mean, he tells 
us in pathetic verse how he proposed to bring re- 
lief to his Creator : 

I do remember how one time I thought 
God must be lonely — oh, so lonely lone ! 

I will be very good to him — ah, naught 

Can reach the heart of his great loneliness ! 
My whole heart I will bring him, with a moan 
That I may not come nearer ! I will lie prone 

Before the awful loneliness in loneliness' excess. 

A God must have a God for company, 

And lo ! thou hast the Son-God to thy friend. 

While companionships are natural to us all, the 
young gravitate toward them more readily and 
easily than the old. As years multiply, our best 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 2<^J 

known friends diminish, and we are followed by 
the memories of dead comrades whose absence 
from us leads our thoughts to heaven. With 
youth, however, it is otherwise. With them exist- 
ence is a fresh gift, and it is full of charms which 
they are anxious to explore and of sweets they are 
solicitous to taste. Among these strange delights 
are those which arise from contact with the thoughts, 
emotions, and ambitions of others, and from the 
possession of confidences and of partnerships in 
mutual hopes and fears. Acquaintances are very 
easily made in boyhood, and the facility with which 
they are formed and their sincerity and strength 
explain how it comes to pass that often the careful 
training of the home is counteracted or neutral- 
ized by the associations of the streets. And, in- 
deed, throughout the entire adolescent period and 
before ingenuousness and unsuspicion have been 
betrayed, the peril of entering into undesirable 
and injurious alliances is extreme. Vicious and 
corrupt characters find it then not a difficult thing 
to impose on the inexperienced, especially as young 
men are often proud of their supposed penetration 
and knowledge of human nature, and have a vague 
though very stubborn conviction that in some way 
excess of depravity is necessary to fullness of life. 
I am more than desirous, as far as my influence 
extends, to avert disaster that springs from the un- 
wise selection of companions. Matthew Arnold, 
in a poem entitled, "Servants of God," likens 
mankind to an army marching over mountains to 
the City of God and which has become ensnared, 
entangled, and in danger of perishing entirely in the 



298 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

desert Then he appeals to the sen^ants of God 
to join themselves to the dispirited host and to 
bring the succor of friendship : 

Languor is not in your heart, 
Weakness is not in your word, 
Weariness not on your brow. 
Eyes rekindling, and prayers 
Follow your steps as ye go. 
Ye fill up the gaps in our file. 
Strengthen the wavering line, 
Stablish, continue our march — 
On, to the bound of the waste — 
On, to the Cit)' of God. 

Happy indeed the generation of young people 
who welcome such souls as Arnold describes to 
places of love and confidence in their hearts. They 
will prove to them good geniuses and inspiring 
counselors. But I am not sanguine that naturally 
the youth of our times will seek for and prefer such 
associates. 

Is there not a general — I do not say universal — 
predisposition on the part of young men to mingle 
with bad company? The historians of all great 
cities feelingly^ relate how commonty the junior 
members of great and aristocratic families have 
made themselves a terror by their lawless im- 
pudence and by^ their midnight revels. Toward 
them have gravitated crowds of their own age not, 
however, equally endowed with wealth or social 
influence, who have even gone beyond their supe- 
riors in noisy bacchanalian demonstrations and in 
defiance of civic authorit}^ xA.nd Vv'ho is there that 
does not know that in all ages there has been a 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 299 

still wider circle, fascinated by what the wilder 
spirits are doing, restrained by some twinges of 
conscience or some memory of moral teachings 
or some tender reminiscences of a mother's touch, 
not daring to go so far as others, and yet desiring 
the excitation and, alas ! oftentimes yielding to the 
fatal spell ? Why have mothers been anxious when 
their sons have departed for college, or when they 
have entered into business relations, or have joined 
the army, or gone to sea ? Parents have always 
been solicitous, and they are in these last days of 
the present century. 

But wherefore ? Perhaps no amount of appa- 
rent goodness and no professions of piety on the 
part of their children ever prove altogether reassur- 
ing. Why ? Why this constant dread ? The an- 
swer is not far to find. It is suggested in remarks 
from an editorial pen on certain phases of univer- 
sity life : 

So long as our centers of learning are centers of tempta- 
tion to the impressionable youths who go there to be pre- 
pared for the battle and duties of life, the fountain of well- 
being in educated society will be fouled and disastrous con- 
sequences must follow. The career of a man is largely de- 
termined by the habits he forms at college and the thoughts 
among which he lives. Even if he survives the sudden 
ruin in which the career of so many freshmen ends, the 
habit of gambling enervates and debauches his whole na- 
ture and makes him unfit to meet the demands of any high 
career. When we contemplate the higher question of spirit- 
ual consequences, it is unspeakably sad to think of the 
numbers of young souls who are ruined in this way. It is 
lime the evil were faced resolutely and finally by the au- 
thorities at our universities. Judicial ignorance of such a 
state of things is little better than a crime. 



300 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Fathers and mothers know — perhaps even from 
their own experience — that reckless, gay, con- 
scienceless people, in schools and out, by their wit 
and abandon, and by their festive moods, have 
about them a charm which frequently no amount 
of good resolutions and carefully matured prin- 
ciples can withstand. Young men, and even maid- 
ens, who have been piously nurtured in school and 
college, will be drawn to them ; and in business 
they will very probably succumb to their influence. 
The guardians of youth realize this peril. They 
also know that kings and prime ministers and ec- 
clesiastics as well have consorted in private with 
courtesans, gamblers, and the glittering scoundrel- 
ism of their times ; and how, in this age, princes 
of the blood have attained unenviable notoriety by 
association with baccarat players, and how their 
only claim to special distinction has resulted from 
the winning of the Derby or a boat race. How 
can any one then escape from the inference — an 
inference strengthened by the enormous sums ex- 
pended annually on vices, one alone, drunkenness, 
costing more each year than religion and philan- 
thropy — that humanity, by some fatal affinity, is 
more likely to seek out and keep bad company 
than to desire and prize that which is good and 
refining? 

The danger being so apparent, I address this 
Message to the men of to-morrow, trusting that it 
may induce them to reflect before it is too late. 

Bad company cannot fail to prove prejudicial to 
the reputation. The old saying, '* Birds of a feather 
flock together," may have exceptions in the gre- 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 3OI 

garious life of humanity, but society fails to recog- 
nize them, and swiftly concludes that he who 
mingles familiarly with the idle or profane cannot 
far exceed them in moral worth. It was objected 
to Jesus that he ate and drank with publicans and 
sinners, it being next to impossible for the Phari- 
sees to understand how even he could "touch 
pitch without being defiled." We have solved the 
difficulty by maintaining that his divinity necessa- 
rily guarded him from moral contagion ; but we are 
not convinced that even well-meaning persons of 
lower rank can afford to expose themselves to its 
deadly influence. Hence the prejudice, if preju- 
dice it is, that insists on judging a youth by the 
company he keeps. It is well known to merchants 
and to others who have much to do with determin- 
ing public opinion, that the miscarriage of innu- 
merable careers can be traced to unfortunate and 
cherished acquaintanceships, and they are not pre- 
pared to admit that such relations can ever have 
any other issue ; and certainly it strengthens their 
position to find inspiration affirming that he who 
''walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a com- 
panion of fools shall be destroyed." 

I am aware how all this is answered by head- 
strong and self-opinionated youth — that these in- 
sinuations are unfair ; that no such sequence is 
necessary as that which is set forth by cynical 
critics ; that virtue surely ought to try and reclaim 
vice, and that silent contempt and utter indiffer- 
ence are the only treatment conscious blameless- 
ness can deign to bestow on cruel suspicion. This 
heroism of course is, in a sense, very much to be 



302 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

admired as creditable to the hearts of sanguine and 
enthusiastic young people. But, my dear fellows, 
of what avail your championship of the wayward, 
your chivalrous devotion, and your disregard of 
the views of your seniors, if you sacrifice your own 
good name ? As Shakespeare intimates, this last 
is not a "commodity" that can easily be bought; 
and he is only serving you as a friend when he ex- 
horts : " Call all your senses to you : Defend your 
reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for- 
ever." 

I would not dampen your ardor, if you really 
feel any ; neither would I curb your independence, 
provided you do not mean, like an unruly steed 
that in his effort to be free dashes over a preci- 
pice, to make general shipwreck of your oppor- 
tunities and prospects. Look at the cold facts. 
It can be demonstrated by a melancholy induction, 
that evil company is courted in the overwhelming 
majority of instances because it is evil, and because 
it loosens restraints, gratifies appetites, and not for 
purposes of piety or philanthropy; and further, 
it can be shown by a multitude of sad examples, 
that the usual heroic defiance of public sentiment 
springs rather from a spirit of self-justification than 
from any deep conviction that the attitude as- 
sumed is just and reasonable. I know you will by 
and by, after reflection, pardon the seeming dis- 
courtesy in my saying these things ; and in saying, 
further, that you have no right to trifle with your 
reputation, and that you ought to show some little 
regard for convictions that have been matured by 
the experiences of many generations, running 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 303 

through many centuries. Remember that " a good 
name is more precious than ointment," and is 
"rather to be chosen than great riches." 

It still may not be clear to the average youth 
how his companions can possibly injure him in this 
respect. To his eyes they are generally fair and 
harmless — not, of course, precisionists of the Puri- 
tan type, but, at the same time, not monsters of 
depravity and not assuredly much worse than him- 
self If this last supposition is correct, then there 
is sufficient reason why they should continue no 
longer together; for sticks burn more fiercely in 
partnership than singly and alone. But allowing 
for modesty, it yet remains to convince the mis- 
guided that very likely they have not discerned the 
real worthlessness of the associates they cling to so 
tenaciously, and do not realize in any perceptible 
degree their real influence over themselves. I 
have said that evil companions ought to be avoided 
because they jeopardize reputation, and I now de- 
sire to add that they thus impair reputations be- 
cause they have been found to corrupt and dam- 
age the character. 

Mr. Tyndall assures us that ''there is no body in 
nature absolutely cold, and every body not abso- 
lutely cold emits rays of heat." Thermal radia- 
tion seems to be in some degree common to every- 
thing God has made. The various complex or 
simple, organic or inorganic, forms that diversify 
and enter into the structure of the globe, as well 
as the sun, and the thermometrical state of the 
space occupied by the planetary system, contribute 
directly to its calidity. In many instances we may 



304 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

not be sensible of its emission, as the temperature 
of our bodies may be equal or superior to it ; but 
it flows forth just the same, regularly, continuously, 
though at times imperceptibly. We inhabit a 
world of heat It is borne to us in the wavelike 
motion of the atmosphere ; it streams toward us and 
embathes us in its genial floods ; and silently, unos- 
tentatiouslv, in billows that leave no scar and that 
echo no thunderous roar, it ovenvhelms and suf- 
fuses us with the gifts of health and joy. 

What is true of the physical is also true of the 
spiritual. We do not see the Almight\-, but we 
can hardly fail to feel him. There flows from his 
presence that which asserts the realit\' of his ex- 
istence — a something comparable to heat, a radia- 
tion of character, a subtle efflux of being that pro- 
foundlv affects his creatures. It mav be described 
as the divine influence, as the shadow cast by the 
realit\' as the halo shed b\' the 2rlor\-. But what- 
ever it is, of its potency there can be no question. 
Undoubtedly, you have sometimes realized the in- 
adequacy- of argument and of formal proof when 
seeking to establish the certaint}' of theism. How 
inconclusive our reasoning, how unsatisfactory- our 
logic, when dealing with this, the most \-ital of all 
issues ! How Hke mere logomachy, sophistr>% 
Jesuitr\', and evasion, do all our boasted demon- 
strations of the Di\-ine existence read ! And yet, 
while confessing their feeble, flimsy, trashy, and 
trivial character, we are not in the least shaken in 
our faith. We believe in God, even when the e\'i- 
dences on which we rely to justiiy our conviction 
appear to us woefully insufficient The reason for 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 305 

this is to be found in the penetrativeness of the 
Divine influence, and the permeabiHty of the hu- 
man soul. A virtue constantly goes out from God, 
which witnesses for him, and which does what 
argumentation can never accomplish. It cures our 
atheism, awakens our reverence, and stimulates our 
devotion. 

Mrs. Browning has written impressively of some- 
thing similar in the relations of human beings : 

Each creature holds an insular point in space ; 
Yet what man stirs a finger, breathes a sound, 
But all the multitudinous beings round, 
In all the countless worlds, with time and place 
For their conditions, down to the central base, 
Thrill, haply, in vibrations and rebound, 
Life answering life across the vast profound 
In full antiphony. 

You must at times have had clear discernment 
of this law of spiritual contagion — this blessed or 
malefic power that a man possesses and exercises 
whether he will or no and by which he imparts 
himself to others. From what you have read and 
from what you have observed you must believe 
that there is something in oratory that is distinct 
both from words and ideas, that lays hold upon the 
hearer and serves as a channel of communication 
for both thoughts and language ; and you must 
acknowledge that similarly there is consummate gen- 
eralship and statesmanship that cannot be meas- 
ured, but which is distinct from what they do, and 
which is indispensable to the doing of it. We 
call this mysterious gift by various names, such as 
''magnetism," or ** genius"; but however we may 

u 



306 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

be perplexed in regard to its true nature, we do 
not doubt that it is inherent in the man, and is the 
supreme disclosure of what he is in contradistinc- 
tion to what he does. You have I suppose, met 
with persons whose very presence chilled and de- 
pressed you ; for them you entertained at the 
outset a strong dislike, which even subsequent 
acquaintanceship could not quite overcome. They 
may have appeared upright, moral, even pious, but 
your unaccountable impressions have created be- 
tween you an impassable gulf Contact with them 
has been like the meeting of molten iron with ice — 
an occasion for vapors. Clouds have come over 
you ; you have been on your guard, have veiled 
yourself, and tried to escape from the harsh judg- 
ments you could not but form. 

And just as glowing metal experiences a percep- 
tible diminution of heat when touching an object 
charged through and through with frost, so you 
have felt a sensible decline in your own morality 
when forced into association with the vicious. 
Virtue went out from you, and you left your com- 
panions sadly weakened in spiritual vigor. Your 
generousness, your truthfulness, your genuine- 
ness, your temperateness, or some other ennobling 
quality, had endured a grievous shock, and had 
suffered at least temporary loss. Volney traces 
various types of religion to local peculiarities. 
Ruskin reminds us that we take on the character of 
natural scenery and other circumstances which sur- 
round us in childhood, and scientists show that in- 
sects and birds and fishes borrow color and habit 
from their environments — thus susceptible are all 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 307 

creatures. They readily assimilate and reproduce 
in themselves the prevailing tone of their associa- 
tions. It is this fact which renders so much force 
to the Scripture warning against evil companion- 
ships. As the mercury rises or falls in the glass 
according to the state of the atmosphere, so virtue 
ascends or descends in the soul in proportion to 
the purity or impurity of the air it is forced to 
breathe. It is not necessary for a man to work 
wickedness to be wicked ; he need only expose 
himself to wickedness. Let any one form the 
habit of mingling with corrupt people, frequenting 
their resorts and observing their ways, and grad- 
ually corruption will become less hideous and very 
likely will acquire the mastery. A young man en- 
gaging in business with an atheist or a reprobate is 
exposed to great peril ; for, although his employer 
may abstain from saying or doing anything disrep- 
utable, the moral radiation of the man cannot be 
evaded. It will stream forth in spite of him, and 
will debase the character of the youth who is sub- 
jected to its power. 

On the other hand, you have, unless you have 
been exceedingly unfortunate, met with men and 
women whose influence has been equally potent 
for good. Their appearance, their look, their bear- 
ing, as well as their words, purified your thought, 
curbed your passions, and refined your entire being. 
In their presence you felt an awe, a holy restraint ; 
your ribaldry was hushed and your haughty look 
subdued. While with them you breathed a heav- 
enly atmosphere, inhaled a sweeter fragrance, and 
caught, in the rustling of their robes, the sound of 



308 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

angel wings. They may not have honored you 
with a recognition ; they may have uttered no 
homily for your benefit ; they may not have de- 
voted themselves, as far as you know, to any great 
philanthropy; but the moral magnetism of their 
souls has drawn you to them and held you spell- 
bound. You dared think no atheism while they 
were near ; you could not indulge in skeptical 
ideas regarding the possibility and reality of virtue ; 
you were incapable of objecting to the certainty of 
immortality ; for in them you perceived that these 
high matters were vindicated and verified. To you 
they were as messengers from another world — the 
shadow of God, the radiance of heaven, the reflec- 
tion of a light whose glory fills eternity. Thus 
Mrs. Browning sings of such a character : 

She never found fault with you, never implied 
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side 
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town 
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown — 

My Kate. 

None knelt at her feet, confessed lovers in thrall; 
They knelt more to God than they used — that was all; 
If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant, 
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went — 

My Kate. 

And just as you have felt a virtue go out from you 
when the wicked have been in contact with you, so 
in the presence of such a soul you have been con- 
scious of a virtue entering your innermost nature. 
Like the woman who experienced healing as she 
touched the hem of the Master's robe, so you will 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 3O9 

ever realize the incoming of new moral vigor when 
you reverently put forth your hand to touch ex- 
alted human goodness. 

It is said of Sir Peter Lely that he would never 
look upon a bad picture if he could avoid it, as 
the defect might impart itself to his pencil ; and an 
eminent Englishman was in the habit of declaring 
that "he would have good company or none." 
And Goethe's Tasso sings of noble characters what 
is equally true of the ignoble : 

As with mysterious power the magnet binds 
Iron with iron, so do kindred aims 
Unite the souls. 

I suppose that books come next to human beings 
in their molding influence, for they are, in a very 
real sense, the impersonation of their author. A 
volume is something more than a story, or a treatise, 
or a history ; it is an imprisoned individuality ap- 
pealing to the reader through the cold iron types — 
like prison bars — and imprinting itself on the re- 
ceptive mind. What the printed page may do in 
determining thought, conscience, conduct, the next 
living acquaintance you make may effect with equal 
facility. John Stuart Mill recommends novel read- 
ers, when they are charmed by some conception of 
exalted manhood or womanhood, to carry the con- 
ception with them, and in doubtful circumstances 
inquire how their hero would act were he situated 
as they are. There is, however, this objection to 
so fantastic and elaborate a process, that if a pro- 
found impression has been received, it will act itself 
out without studious effort to follow an example. 



3IO MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

The suicides that succeeded the publication of 
Goethe's "Werther" were impelled to self-murder 
by the mis-educating force of the book and not by 
a conscious desire to do just as some one else had 
done. A man who took his own life in New York 
was found with a copy of Dickens' ^' Martin Chuz- 
zlewit" open at the page describing the suicide of 
Jonas ; and while in this case the victim may have 
been prompted by a pattern of self-destruction to 
immediate decision, I am satisfied that long before 
the fatal hour he had come under the influence of 
a spell that at the last prevented deliberation. He 
had the character of a self-murderer before he had 
the guilt of one, and this had been derived from books 
or personal intercourse, as some recent suicides 
have simply been impelled onward to the grave by 
the utterances of an infidel lecturer. We are not 
always conscious when we are acted on, and we 
may receive impressions for good or evil unknow- 
ingly and unresistingly, as the earth does the sun- 
light, or the fertilizing rains, or withering and blight- 
ing frost. A man listens to a brilliant orator who 
eulogizes the ancient philosophers and great cap- 
tains who found a way through the open door of 
death from the persecutions of enemies or the de- 
feats of fortune. He is fascinated by the discourse. 
Not unlikely he confuses the various representa- 
tions and concludes that self-murder is not only a 
means of escape, but a sign of greatness. He is 
ready for the perpetration of the crime. No in- 
tention to commit it has yet been formed, nor is he 
conscious that any change has taken place in his 
feelings on the subject of death ; but, notwith- 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 3 I I 

Standing, the poison works. A crisis comes. Next 
day the papers chronicle that a disappointed and 
crushed soul has violently ended his earthly career. 
How could he have done such a thing ? What a 
mystery ! No ; not such a mystery as the public 
supposes. He has been keeping very bad com- 
pany, has been assimilated to its theories regarding 
death, and more heroic than his teacher, he has 
put them into execution. 

May it not further assist the young man setting 
out in life, if we sketch several of the more despic- 
able types of character with which he will likely 
associate, and thus assist him to determine what must 
be the total effect of their influence on him ? It 
is suggested that probably he will consort with such 
as my pen can readily draw ; for they exist almost 
everywhere and are singularly able to ingratiate 
themselves into the favor of the unsuspecting. 
They appear in every community like some forms 
of ever-recurring diseases, or like certain parasites 
which are sure to develop wherever they find con- 
genial soil and adequate support. The present is 
pretty much as the past in its human products. 

There is to-day the aimless idler whose sole busi- 
ness in life is to lounge. To him the world is a 
weariness and he is ceaselessly fatigued. Each day 
is greeted with a yawn and is closed with a sigh of 
relief He lives in the "Castle of Indolence," and 
has inscribed on his escutcheon the somnolent 
motto, Quieta non movere. It is his chief delight 
that he has nothing to do and inanely to suggest 
that there is really nothing worth doing. The pres- 
ence of such a youth is an anodyne, a lenitive, 



312 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

and charges the social atmosphere with nepenthe 
and exhausts it of ozone. To touch him is equal 
to a sleeping draught, and to associate with him is 
to court lethargy and enduring coma. He is as 
chloroform to the intellect and as a deadening 
anaesthetic to the moral nature. To imagine that 
you can make such a one a friend and retain your 
wakefulness and activity, is as absurd as to imagine 
that you can inject morphine under the skin and 
not feel its tranquilizing influence. It will be found 
that his unspeakable laziness and his unutterable 
insouciance are more stupefying than all the prepa- 
rations of the poppy, and that they penetrate 
deeper than the surface — even to the very heart 
Sir Horace Vere is reported to have said that his 
brother ''died of having nothing to do " ; and Gen- 
eral Epinola is reported to have made reply, ** Alas ! 
that is enough to kill any general of us all." 

But what is worse than this mortality among 
idlers and fashionable lazzaroni is, that they are 
not content with killing themselves — a fault we 
could well pardon — but they become the means of 
killing other people. Say what we may, there is a 
charm and fascination to many youthful minds 
about these leisurely and reposeful individuals, who 
stand aloof from the bustle and fussiness of busi- 
ness. They unconsciously hypnotize nearly all 
who come within their sphere of attraction, and 
most of their victims return to them as steadily as 
slaves of the morphine habit to their drug. We 
cannot, therefore, too constantly warn against their 
companionship, and entreat the young to avoid 
them cis they would a vapor of death. Only by 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 3 1 3 

entire separation from them can interest be main- 
tained in the world's great workshop, where every 
honest man will find a task awaiting his hand. An 
elderly Bostonian has described a visit to Scrib- 
ner's headquarters in New York. He was anxious 
to meet a representative of the great publishing 
house as old as himself; but such a one could not 
be discovered in the establishment. The head of 
the advertisement department, Mr. Bok, was only 
twenty-five years of age ; the manager of the edu- 
cation department, Mr. Moffatt, only twenty-four; 
the business chief of the magazine, Mr. Double- 
day, twenty-six ; the general traveler, Mr. Brewer, 
twenty-seven; the junior partner, Mr. Scribner, 
twenty-six; and Mr. Charles Scribner himself 
turned out to be only thirty-five. The surprise of 
the venerable Bostonian can readily be pictured at 
the prominence of these boys ; but it may safely 
be said that not one among the group achieved his 
position by affiliation with idlers, or by skulking 
from duty. 

But if do-nothings are to be shunned, loud, pro- 
fane, and braggart talkers are to be treated in like 
manner ; for they are usually weaklings and not over- 
gifted with tact and discernment. They are in love 
with their own speech and know no sound so sweet 
as their own voices. While the first order of imbe- 
ciles fold their hands, the second merely unfold 
their tongues. It is unnecessary for them to sing, 
'' If I were a voice, I would fly, I would fly" ; for, 
like the mythical female, in reality that is all 
they are — only they don't fly, but stay and bore 
every poor creature who will listen to their chatter. 



314 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Enlightened conversation is a precious boon. 
Liszt declared of George Eliot that, ugly though 
she was, she knew how to charm by her speech 
and her silence, just as Madame de Stael did before 
her; and Carlyle, though grim and at times unap- 
proachable, was one of the most fascinating, as he 
was one of the most tireless talkers, and could 
hold men like Lord Holland, John Stuart Mill, and 
Sterling spellbound through successive hours. But 
then, language in these instances was the medium 
of thought and stimulated thought in others. Far 
othenvise is it on the lips of those whose ceaseless 
babble should be sternly rebuked. Disgraceful is 
it to our civilization and intelligence that so many 
persons exist who can perceive no nobler use for 
speech than to make it a common sewer of oaths, 
ribald jests, and covert indecencies. The notion 
that has obtained among some people, that there 
is no more harm in uttering vicious sentiments 
than there is in thinking them, is entirely mislead- 
ing. A cannon charged with gunpowder and ball 
is a very inoffensive object, and will so continue to 
be until an explosion is caused. When that takes 
place the ball getting outside the great gun may 
wound and kill, and the very recoil of the gun may 
injure the man who fired it So blasphemy and 
swearing and impure imaginings, while they remain 
unspoken, are comparatively innoxious. The dam- 
age they then w^ork is accomplished within the 
mind exclusively; but once they are given free- 
dom they hurt all who hear, and increase by speech 
the mischief done to those who gave them hospi- 
tality. Vile language vitiates the atmosphere. 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 315 

None of us can afford to breathe it; and he who 
employs it is unfit for society, as he generally has 
no convictions and no reverence, and but little 
respect either for God or man. 

Neither is it advisable to consort with those who 
are lying braggarts and who seem to find it diffi- 
cult to tell the truth. And not a few of such 
talkers boast, like Justice Shallow, of what should 
bring to their cheeks the blush of shame, and like 
young mud-turtles wallow in defilement. Probably 
they are not guilty of one-half of the iniquity they 
parade, and certainly when they relate their 
prowess by flood and field, a great deal may be 
subtracted from the achievement as reported by 
its hero. The eagle shot on the wing probably 
was only a harmless, fluttering barnyard goose ; 
the lion wounded near the jungle probably was a 
gentle, unsuspecting calf; and the mighty bison, 
only a poor donkey; and the great, great fish 
caught with so much extraordinary skill, could one 
get at the facts, would most likely prove to be only 
a fatuous gudgeon. 

We are, perhaps, inclined only to smile at these 
mendacious companions, wherecis they ought to be 
dreaded. Especially in youth, when we are indi- 
vidually molded into the image of our associates, 
and when we ascend and descend with strange 
facility from good to bad and experience many a 
metamorphosis, we need to be careful lest we 
finally become fixed in the latter rather than in the 
former. It is particularly hard at that age when 
we are ambitious and impatient of superiority to 
hear others romance about themselves without 



3l6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

attempting to excel them. The temptation to out- 
lie the liar is tremendous ; and many a lad, by nature 
ingenuous, has through such unworthy endeavors 
fixed on himself a dastardly habit that has fatally 
dimmed the brightness of his career. 

Equally pernicious is the influence of others who 
are coarse in their minds, gross in their habits, sus- 
picious and skeptical in their judgments, and who 
seem to have been fashioned without any of the 
finer sensibilities of humanity — like a harp without 
strings. Tell them that King Humbert stood 
among the ruins of a house in Rome trying to res- 
cue some of his buried subjects, and that too at 
the risk of his own life ; or that the Emperor of 
Austria followed the remains of one of his people 
who had died of cholera to the grave, because the 
relatives had not courage to do so ; or that the 
peasant who, when the arches of the bridge at 
Verona had been washed away, refused money for 
rescuing a family at imminent peril to himself, in 
these terms: "I do not sell my life; give the 
money to the poor ones saved from a watery 
grave" — and they will laugh an unbelieving 
chuckle, and straightway challenge the genuineness 
of the stories or impute to these heroes all kinds 
of base and improbable motives. They cannot 
credit good or noble deeds, unselfish and generous 
sacrifices of any one ; and they continually seek to 
bring into dispute everything religious, from the 
Founder of Christianity down to his most self- 
denying disciple. To their diseased souls — if souls 
they have — honesty is a lost virtue, and indeed, 
virtue itself to them is merely a name. Mock- 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 317 

ingly they declare that every man has his price, 
and every woman too ; and they can quote senti- 
mental authors and brilliant so-called scientists in 
support of their views. What ! have not essayists 
written that morality is merely a product of evolu- 
tion and not of conscience, and that it has been 
determined in its precepts by ''environment," 
''natural selection," and the "inevitable struggle 
for existence," and not by divine revelation? And 
consequently they argue that, as environment 
changes and the conflict deepens, morality must 
also change. Right and wrong, they are quick to 
point out, according to this theory can have no 
fixed character, but must share in the general 
fluidity of things ; and thus, in the end, those whom 
the church brands as the social villains oi to-day 
may become the virtuous of to-morrow; even as 
the infidels of yesterday — the Paines, Voltaires, 
and Tolands — if the present clerical undermining 
of Bible supernaturalism continues, will turn out 
to be the saints of the day after. This is what is 
being said by the bull-necked, bloated, and drop- 
sical frequenters of bar-rooms and jockey clubs 
and gambling-hells ; and with lachrymose pathos, 
diversified by a few eloquent hiccoughs, they are 
beginning to express the hope that the future will 
do them the justice denied by this pharisaical cen- 
tury. Need I say that the company of such men 
is undesirable, that it must tend to breed distrust 
in every one and in everything, and must finally 
leave the lad who is fascinated by their sneers with- 
out landmarks in a wilderness, and without latitude 
or longitude in mid-ocean. 



3l8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

I cannot refrain from likening these corrupters of 
youth to a sagacious but conscienceless steer that 
achieved considerable notoriety during the year 
1887, or thereabouts, in the Chicago stockyards. 
He was owned by one of the ** Big Four,"and was 
himself evidently a *'foxy " dealer in flesh. Hav- 
ing in some mysterious manner escaped the sham- 
bles, he made it his sole business to lead others 
there, and then as quickly as possible to get out of 
the way of the knife. It was a scene worthy the 
attention of ruminating philosophers to see the 
huge bovine reprobate wheel into position each 
day at the head of the drove destined to slaughter, 
as though to assure each member of the herd that 
any suspicions he might possibly entertain were 
unfounded ; that no evil awaited him at the top of 
the dubious looking passageway and through the 
foul-smelling entrance, and that to prove it he 
would go first. Impressive to observe him trot on 
a little in advance, followed by the victims of his 
guile, and then when he had them secure enough, 
to notice him, with a wicked switch of his tail, not 
unlike for significance to the wink of some men's 
eyes, turn suddenly around and hurriedly retrace 
his steps to the pens. So with as little feeling for 
the suffering caused, these coarse creatures of whom 
I have written mislead the unsuspecting and then 
abandon them to the baneful consequences of their 
unwise confidence. 

Nor are these consequences avoidable if this 
evil companionship is continued. I sometimes 
wonder whether we do not always deteriorate be- 
low the level of our vicious associates. Why may 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 319 

not this be the rule ? Is it not probable that in 
our desire to resemble our friends we may unwit- 
tingly go beyond them, even as the arrow, when 
drawn to hit a mark, will fly far beyond if the 
mark is missed ? This is an eventuality rarely con- 
templated. The youth, fascinated by tippler, game- 
ster, idler, boaster, would like to excel his ideal 
just a trifle ; but he has no thought of going to ex- 
tremes. He sees, or imagines that he sees, a pit 
before him, yawning, ugly, to be sedulously avoided. 
Of course he will avoid it Why not ? And yet, 
as the poor bird from the branch of the tree looks 
down on the serpent's gleaming eyes, and may be 
conceived as chirping to itself, '* I am near enough ; 
I will go no nearer," and yet already is on flutter- 
ing wing, circling round and round the cruel mouth 
waiting for the silly prey, so our poor, infatuated 
boy comes into closer proximity with the disgust- 
ing possibility he has observed coiled in his path- 
way and yields when he is fluttering the hardest to 
escape. 

It is the constant illusion of all ages that, while 
others may be assimilated to their ideals and reap 
all the bitter effects of their folly, they — the par- 
ticularly favored, the elect — will surely be deliv- 
ered. Each man, in his own opinion, is the excep- 
tion to all the rules governing the moral and social 
history of humanity. Vanity, inordinate self-es- 
teem, lend their aid to blind him, and he dreams 
that Providence will surely open to him a back 
door by which he may withdraw from the ills at- 
tending vile companionships and their sins. But 
remember the Supreme Judge is not partial. He 



320 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

is not like that pope who, when urged to condemn 
Benvenuto Cellini on account of his enormities, re- 
plied : ** Yes, all that you say is well enough ; but 
if he is executed, where am I to get another Cel- 
lini? " Rest assured the Almighty is not deterred 
by your wonderful ability, your skill, your genius ; 
and though you are as extraordinarily versatile in 
your gifts as the illustrious Florentine, he will trip 
you up in your wrong-doing and bring down your 
arrogance ; for he always knows where to place his 
hand on another CeUini. 

In confirmation of this conviction, contemplate 
two pictures drawn from life ; the first of a man, 
the second of a woman ; and the first of one of 
the most highly endowed of the race, and the 
second of one of the most popular, giddy, and un- 
principled of her sex. Dr. James Alexander writes : 
" I have been looking into a dreadful book, Moore's 
'Life of Byron ' — the life of one debauchee, written 
by another. It is the most instructive comment I 
ever read on the divine word, * The way of the 
transgressor is hard.' Voluptuary as he was, ever 
sighing after some new pleasure and drinking to its 
depth the cup of worldly and sensual enjoyment, 
Byron seems to have experienced little less than a 
hell upon earth. Here I read in awful colors the 
tormenting power of uncontrolled selfishness. Re- 
morse without repentance and self-contempt with- 
out amendment are dreadful scourges. From 
country to country he fled, but he carried the scor- 
pions with him." Pitiable beyond expression is 
the verse that cannot truly be called a song, but is 
rather a dirge : 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 321 

Though gay companions o' er the bowl 

Dispel awhile the sense of ill, 
Though pleasures fill the maddening soul, 

The heart — the heart is lonely still. 
Aye, but to die, and go, alas ! 

Where all have gone and all must go ; 
To be the nothing that I was 

Ere born to life and living woe. 

In the volume to which Dr. Alexander refers, we 
have the account of a scene that occurred the night 
before Bellingham was hanged. Lord Byron, see- 
ing an unfortunate woman lying on the steps of a 
door, with some expression of compassion offered 
her a few shillings ; but instead of accepting them, 
she violently pushed away his hand and, starting 
up with a yell of laughter, began to mimic the 
lameness of his gait. He did not utter a word, 
but the gentleman who accompanied him could 
feel his arm tremble in his own. Is there not some- 
thing fearful in this encounter ? — the sinning ones 
meeting together again in the dark, she to mock 
and he to slink hurriedly away, ashamed to look 
in her eyes. And if the genius of Byron could 
not save him from so shameful an exposure — an 
exposure that has been blazoned far and wide on 
the pages of biography — how can you, young man, 
of even less than mediocre understanding, escape 
from the shambles of the ox and from the correc- 
tion of the stocks? 

Some quarter of a century of yeaYs has passed 
since the loungers in Hyde Park, London, stared 
with intense curiosity on the splendid equipage 
and irreproachable liveries of a female celebrity 
who was not born in affluence and who ranked not 



322 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

with the aristocracy. She was the daughter of the 
gifted soul who composed the charming ballad, 
"Kathleen Mavourneen," and who wrote the beau- 
tiful ''Dermot Asthore." By what disreputable 
arts she obtained her unenviable notoriety need 
not be repeated here. Suffice it she moved to 
Paris, where she made her debut at the Opera 
botiffes, and after an extraordinary success became 
one of the most conspicuous figures among the 
frailer personages of the Second Empire. She 
was the most dazzling of creatures, and for a season 
she set the fashions in dress, in carriages, and in 
household furniture. Her apartments in the CJiamps 
Ely sees were gorgeous and yet tasteful, and her 
stables were the admiration of the bea2i inonde. It 
is said that she rode so gracefully and perfectly that 
she gained the title of La Centauresse, and that she 
lavished a fortune on her horses. To have seen 
her radiant and elegantly robed in her rooms with 
her marble statues, rare china, beautiful fans, costly 
curiosities, and her rich cabinets filled with treasures 
of art, one might have supposed that she had eluded 
the hand of fate and had even charmed the spirit 
of retribution into forgetfulness of her frailty. 
Such, however, was not the case. Even she, appar- 
ently triumphant, outlived prosperit}^, and in the 
reverses that overtook her, seemed to lose nearly 
every trace of her former self Her wealth was 
swept away and with it went her look of distinc- 
tion. Disease preyed upon her and the pallor be- 
trayed itself under the rouge ; and neglected and 
despised, she was often seen to stand opposite her 
old residence in the Champs Ely sees mournfully con- 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 323 

templating the scene of her former splendor and 
sinfulness. When she died, in extreme poverty, 
a few acquaintances joined in a subscription of 
scarcely one hundred dollars to meet the funeral 
expenses. Her remains were interred in what is 
called a ''five-years' grave," and by this time the 
dust of some one else — one less notorious probably, 
and, let us hope, one whose life was happier — has 
been lowered into the same grave to mingle with 
all that is mortal of the courtesan of the Napo- 
leonic restoration, whose name I have not given ; 
for that, with her bones, had better be committed 
to the oblivion of decay. Companionship had 
much to do with these ruined lives, and neither 
gifts nor graces, genius nor beauty, could restrain 
the awful whirlwind that was set loose when the 
wind was sown. 

While the sacrifice of reputation and the serious, 
and possibly fatal, wreck of character and fortune 
entailed by pernicious friendships ought to render 
our young people watchful, the mis-educating effect 
of such friendships, totally unfitting for higher and 
purer fellowships with the refined and exquisite 
pleasures springing therefrom, ought to determine 
them to be ensnared by them no longer. Con- 
tinued association with the shallow and corrupt 
renders intercourse distasteful with those men and 
women who are qualified to instruct, delight, and 
elevate. Do you know what this deprivation 
means ? To be incapable of understanding, ap- 
preciating, and enjoying the leaders of thought and 
activity, the creators of literature and the benefac- 
tors of humanity, is at once deplorable, and — may 



324 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

I say it? — disgraceful. It is a mark of a nature 
thoroughly debased and impoverished. Socrates 
reminds us that "the bad are never at unity with 
one another nor with themselves." However they 
may flock together like sheep and contaminate one 
another they are never really united. The sweets 
that spring from the interminghng of souls are 
denied them, and are only possible where rectitude 
and honor prevail. When one of Shakespeare's 
characters declares that ** friendship is full of dregs," 
he must have had in mind the vain attempts of the 
selfish, profane, and corrupt to form alliances in 
which the sympathies and brotherliness experienced 
by the virtuous may be preserved. Such people 
would have sweet water and bitter flow from the 
same fountain. 

The courtiers of Frederick the Great remon- 
strated with him on account of his rearing for him- 
self a tomb among the graves of his favorite ani- 
mals. He answered, " I wish to be buried among 
the only friends I ever had who have not deceived 
me." But why did he feel thus isolated ? Those 
who have read his story know very well how he 
cast off all who drew near to him ; how brutally he 
treated his sister, Wilhelmine ; and how he identi- 
fied grandeur with heartlessness, and authority 
with harshness. His imperious temper, his selfish- 
ness, his arbitrariness and coarseness, repelled his 
most intimate acquaintances, and everything like 
mutual confidence and tender affection was impos- 
sible. The same law governs between men who 
are not great, but who are small enough and mean 
enough. They cannot trust ; they cannot share 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 325 

their joys and sorrows ; and though walking side 
by side and clasping hands, they cannot feel that 
they have anything in common. No wonder that 
such persons rail at friendship, and that they insult 
their own kindred by preferring a burial place with 
dogs ! 

But there is a fellowship attainable the reverse 
of all this, the possession of which is an honor and 
a happiness to humanity. When Thirlwall, in his 
work on Greece, observes, **The heroic compan- 
ions celebrated by Homer and others seem to have 
but one heart and soul, with scarcely a wish or 
object apart, and only to live, as they are always 
ready to die, for one another," we feel that we are 
being introduced to a kind of relationship forever 
beyond the reach of shallow, superficial, and de- 
moralized young men. And when we read the 
stories of Achilles and Patroclus, of Pylades and 
Orestes, of Damon and Pythias, of Hercules and 
lolaus, of Diomedes and Sthenelus, notwithstanding 
some exaggerations and probable fabrications, we 
discern in all an effort to show forth how close and 
precious may be the alliances between men, and how 
fruitful in the highest achievements, when they are 
grounded in personal worth and chivalrous purity. 
Incalculably valuable and delightful, beneficial and 
beautiful, the kinship of superior minds ! Alcibiades 
used to declare that his converse with Socrates always 
lifted him up and improved him ; and that if he 
knew the philosopher was in an adjoining chamber 
he could not but feel stronger and wiser. If Francis 
Horner is to be credited, his friendships did more 
toward his intellectual improvement than the books 



326 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

he studied ; and, though his position may be an 
extreme one, I am sure that frequent conversation 
with some cultivated men and women must be equal, 
or nearly equal, to a liberal education. Carlyle 
writes of a once famous preacher : ** But for Irving, 
I had never known what communion of man with 
man means. He was the freest, brotherliest, brav- 
est human soul mine ever came in contact with." 
And who can estimate the preciousness of contact 
with such a soul? It is a discovery, a revelation, 
an apocalypse full of glorious wondqrs and full of 
God as well. How can he who frequents the 
society of fools hold communion with such a one ? 
He has no faculties, no organs, by which he can 
hold commerce with a nature like Irving's, or he is 
rapidly benumbing them by his association with the 
coarse and the ribald. Writing of John Sterling, 
Dean Trench says : "It was impossible to come in 
contact with his noble nature without feeling one's 
self in some measure ennobled and lifted up, as I 
ever felt when I left him, into a higher region of 
objects and aims than that in which one is tempted 
to dwell." 

But let it be understood, there is no fellowship 
between light and darkness, between Beelzebub 
and Jesus ; and that, consequently, the young man 
renounces the possibility of being lifted into these 
higher regions when he chooses his comrades from 
among those who dwell in the marshes, fens, and 
the lowlands of carnal pleasures. Memorable is 
Lord Bacon's testimony. He declares that "no 
receipt openeth the heart but a true friend" ; and 
he adds that friendship introduces "daylight in the 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 32/ 

understanding out of darkness and confusion of 
thoughts, and maketh a fair day in the affections 
from storm and tempests," Of course it must, 
provided the friend has in himself Hght that he can 
impart and the spirit of calm that he can com- 
municate ; for human history, from the beginning, 
records the power of personal influence ; and if the 
influence is good, it must be inspiring and helpful. 
It is said that Haydn caught the fervor for music 
from Handel, and that, in turn, Haydn imparted it 
to Scarlatti, who, it is reported, never spoke the 
name of his master without crossing himself And 
who is it that does not know how largely Chris- 
tianity owes its success in the world to the enthu- 
siasm of one soul kindling enthusiasm in another? 
As it is written at the beginning of the Gospel, 
Andrew found his own brother, Simon ; and Philip, 
being taught by Jesus, communicated the glad 
news to Nathanael ; and so the leaven of the new 
kingdom spread. And in later times and in other 
communities, pastors, parents, disciples, and Sun- 
day-school teachers, by their personal character as 
well as by their words, have been instrumental in 
transmitting the divine life to multitudes. 

There is a poem by Coppee, called " Angelus'' 
which suggests a fitting climax to this study, as it 
suggests a law which cannot be ignored without 
loss. The scene is laid in a tiny hamlet, built 
among the rocks overlooking the southern sea, and 
the principal characters are two venerable men, one 
the parish priest, and the other his sei'vant and 
friend, formerly a soldier, and the third a foundling 
child. For years, the old cure and his sexton have 



328 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

lived together, and time has grown heavy and life 
uninteresting. But one dismal winter evening, 
when the angelus has sounded, on their return to 
the parsonage they find a babe, forsaken by pa- 
rents and left in the doorway. They adopt the 
waif, and the interest of the tale turns on their 
endeavors to train him for usefulness and honor. 
They make only indifferent nurses ; but they are 
supremely happy in their new employment. No 
women for them to care for their protege / They 
will do everything themselves. And they did it 
tenderly and anxiously ; but they could not bestow 
what the boy needed more than anything else — a 
mother's love and the companionship of children. 
Well, the lad grew, pensive and reserved ; but 
there came to him an ailment his protectors did 
not understand. At times he was languid and 
would spend hours alone, and would lie upon the 
sandy beach as if waiting for something — what? 
One day, as he thus rested and seemed asleep, his 
protectors watched over him and discussed his 
future. The priest was clear that his adopted son 
should not enter the clerical profession, as it was a 
calling full of privations and disappointments ; and 
the veteran would not have him stained by the 
blood of men. As they gravely argued, the lad 
looked up and confessed that he had heard all their 
speech, and had himself determined his career. 
With cheek flushed and eye strangely brilliant, he 
said : "I will be a sailor, and visit those countries 
of which I have read in books, lands where the 
skies are always blue and birds of wondrous plum- 
age haunt the forest. When I close my eyes, I 



ON KEEPING BAD COMPANY 329 

see everything gold-colored, and the waves, as they 
ripple, whisper, ' Come away ! ' I have had a dream. 
I dreamed the heavens were in sable mourning and 
the stars one by one dropped into the sea. Only 
one remained — my own star. But see ! it grows 
fainter and fainter. It is now falling into the sea. 
I am cold ; I am alarmed ; it is night." 

When the two old men bent over the form of 
the boy, they discovered that he was dead, and the 
angelus sounded on the air. 

Companionship — it is indispensable. The youth 
perishes because the companionship necessary to 
his years is denied him. He was alone even in 
company, when the company was not such as his 
heart imperatively demanded. Wrong comradeship 
and bad comradeship are as fatal as no comradeship. 
The law of God is that we shall cultivate fellowship 
which shall meet the needs of our nature. Through 
these we grow strong ; without them we — that is, 
our truer and better selves — fade away. The stars 
drop out of our heavens too, and night enshrouds 
us. Without such fellowships we may not die as 
did the youth in the poem, but not much will sur- 
vive that is worth preserving. The fulfillment of 
all the possibilities in you, young men, the unfold- 
ing of your resources, the life of your lives, there- 
fore depends on your companions. Choose them 
thoughtfully, prayerfully ; and remember that the 
truest and the best are to be found in the church 
of Christ ; and never forget that, while you may 
walk continually with the redeemed of the Lord, 
you may complete your spiritual development by 
walking with the Lord himself. 



X 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 

Lord, "what I once had done with youthful mighty 
Had I been from the first true to the truth. 

Grant me, 7iozu old, to do — "cvith better sight. 
And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth ; 
So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and ruth. 

Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain 

Round to his best — young eyes and heart and brain. 

REV. JAMES MARTINEAU, in one of his 
latest sermons, gives utterance to a pathetic 
thought in these eloquent sentences : 

Whoever may step out into his garden, or throw up his 
window, to breathe the first air of a new day or a new 
year, cannot fail to be struck with the insensibiht}^ of na- 
ture to our divisions of time. The greater and the lesser 
lights of the sky feel not the seasons of which they are ap- 
pointed to be signs. No great bell of the universe tolls 
away the passing spirit of the year ; no chimes ring out 
from the restless wind to greet the period newborn. The 
calm, eternal heavens maintain their silent steadfastness, 
the star slips past the meridian wire which divides century 
from century as though it were a vulgar moment, without 
pause to think or trembling to feel how awful the mark it 
sets afloat on the current of eternity. 

But what is infinitely more pathetic, multitudes 
of our fellow-beings drift onward, without ever 
taking the *'log" or the "sun" ; without ever 
pausing to note the succeeding birthdays, or to 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 33 1 

observe how rapidly the light is fading in the west. 
So long as this indifference continues the best will 
not be wrought either by youth or age. The 
country parson, in his "Recreations," represents 
himself as sitting on an antique flat tombstone that 
marked the resting-place of a former occupant of 
his own pulpit. As he laid his hand on the moss- 
grown slab a little child playing nearby ran to him 
and, spreading her tiny hand by his, inquired, 
"Was your hand ever as small as mine?" This set 
him thinking. Three hands ; one beneath the sod, 
now turned to dust; the child's, pink and soft and 
fragile ; and his own, strong and hard, midway be- 
tween the two. He straightway began to meditate 
on growing old. An important crisis this in the 
life of any man ! But better far had he never 
been oblivious to the fact that years simply multi- 
ply, and that childhood exists but for a day. When 
Charles I. discovered the first gray hair in his head 
he plucked it out and sent it with a merry jest to 
his queen. And yet there is something gently 
solemn in this first streak of frost — the presage of 
coming winter, the tender suggestion that the 
storm-doors had better be put on the house and 
preparations be made for kindling the fire on the 
hearth : 

Silent warning ! silvery streak ! 
Not unheeded dost thou speak. 
Not with feelings light and vain, 
Not with fond, regretful pain, 
Look I on the token sent 
To declare the day far spent. 

Then it is painfully realized that there is a corpse 



332 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

near-by, and that the paUid flowers of grief are 
needed. Young manhood is cold ; maidenhood is 
no more. All stiff and rigid the early self, once 
rich in vigor, prolific in plan, buoyant in hope, 
abundant in promise, fertile in resource, and un- 
daunted in courage ! Dead now, dead forever, and 
all that remains is for the present self, in such terms 
as the past may warrant, to pronounce the funeral 
oration on the former self! 

It is not to be denied that some persons become 
conscious of approaching decay with gloomy dis- 
satisfaction and with remorseful apprehensions. 
They shiveringly speak of the period on which 
they are entering as the winter of life, and in their 
frostbitten imaginations they see stretched out be- 
fore them an inhospitable season, when the rivers 
are ice-locked, the lakes cold and immovable, the 
prairies white and verdureless ; when primroses 
never smile, nor the violets shed their perfume. 
Alas ! we fear that in many instances the picture is 
fulfilled, and that sterile gloom or stormy desola- 
tion marks the closing years of life. But old age 
need not be thus cheerless and Siberian in its 
character. There are genial winters, with warm 
days in bleak December and flowers growing on 
the edge of the glacier. Moreover, even the win- 
ter has its special joys — the fall of the sunlight on 
the snow-fields, transforming them as the garments 
of our Lord were transfigured on Hermon's snowy 
height ; the myriad sparkling crystal forms ; the 
sharp, invigorating air; the release of rivers from 
noisy, bustHng steamboats, and the sooty streaks 
that attend the progress of commerce; the soft 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 333 

white shroud enwrapping the boisterous streets ; 
the soulful glancing of the stars as they shine 
through an atmosphere free from foul vapors ; the 
spectral and gaunt majesty of the giant trees ; and 
within the cottage home or palatial retreat the 
ruddy glow of crackling logs, the long hours given 
to books and social intercourse, with the sense of 
warmth and comfort and safety when the sleet 
dashes wildly against the window-pane and the wind 
moans in plaintive accompaniment, and between 
the gusts the hoarse voice of the breakers calls 
forth a prayer for the *'wet sea-boy on the dizzy 
mast." The winter of life likewise need not be all 
wretchedness and woe. As December has its own 
attractions, though they are not the garish and 
florid glories of July and August, so the closing 
years of our existence may have a charm and 
beauty all their own. Then a quiet dignity, a 
sweet tolerance, a genial forbearance, an untiring 
sympathy, a gentle compassion, a thoughtful re- 
serve, combined with precious memories of days 
well spent and of joyous anticipations to be met in 
other and brighter realms, may crown the end with 
serenity and joy. 

But such an old age as this depends in no small 
degree on the conduct of youth ; for if time, in its 
last stages, is to yield a benediction, it must not in 
its first be turned into a curse. There must be no 
neglect of its opportunities, no perversion of its 
gifts, and no studied indifference to its significance, 
from which the man will be roused, when all too 
late, by some child's hand placed in his own, or by 
some silver thread in his raven locks. 



334 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

It is not altogether unnatural for young people 
to take no thought of time, but it is exceedingly- 
unwise. The drunkards of Israel were reproved 
for comforting themselves with the assurance that 
the to-morrow would be as the to-day and even 
more abundant In a sense they were right 
enough ; one day includes as many hours, and each 
hour as many minutes, and each minute as many 
seconds, as any other. But he who says "to-mor- 
row will be as to-day and even more abundant," 
be he drunk or sober, forgets that he himself will 
not be the same to-morrow that he is to-day, nor 
so abundant, but will be, if he persists in this illu- 
sion, shiiveled up in many things, without energy 
or ability to engage in untried ventures, and when 
all too late will understand Shelley's saying, that 
" most men spend the latter half of their lives cor- 
recting the mistakes of the preceding half" To 
avert the possibilit\' of so bitter an experience, 
there must be a profound realization of the value 
of time to those who stand in the ver\^ dawning of 
existence. It is reported of Napoleon, who usually 
seized the moment in its flight and charged it 
through and through with the life of action that, 
after the passage of arms at Reichenbach, which 
cost him Duroc, he moodily replied to Caulain- 
court's appeal for orders, "To-morrow — every- 
thing." Multitudes of young people are disposed 
to answer many, if not all, serious claims on them 
for earnest work, "To-morrow — everj^^thing," fail- 
ing to perceive that they will find in "to-morrow" 
only what they import from to-day. 

Charlotte Bronte writes: "I shall be thirty-one 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 335 

next birthday. My youth is gone Hke a dream, 
and very little use I made of it." I do not pre- 
tend to judge the soundness of her criticism on 
herself; but I am sure that the policy of delay will 
inevitably lead to a repetition of Tom Hood's con- 
fession : '*My forty years have been my forty 
thieves, for they have stolen strength, hope, and 
many other joys." Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his 
own inimitable way, illustrates the fatuity of those 
who are listless in the present, and who somehow 
imagine that the future, as though it were a per- 
sonal entity endowed with millions, must surely 
bring wealth and honor. Among the applicants 
visiting the *' Intelligence Office " which he describes 
so graphically, there is an elderly gentleman whose 
white hair streams in the wind, and who moves 
with the alacrity of a vehement purpose. He em- 
phatically states that he is in search of to-morrow, 
and adds : **I have spent all my life in pursuit of 
it, being assured that to-morrow has some vast 
benefit or other in store for me. But now I am 
getting a little in years, and must make haste, for 
unless I overtake to-morrow soon, I begin to be 
afraid it will finally escape me." With something 
of pathos in his voice, the, man of intelligence 
answers the disheartened old gentleman : ** This 
fugitive to-morrow, my venerable friend, is a stray 
child of Time and is flying from his father into the 
region of the infinite. Continue your pursuit, and 
you will doubtless come up with him ; but as to 
the earthly gifts which you expect, he has scattered 
them all among a throng of yesterdays." Wise 
teacher ! Only as minutes are valued as they 



336 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

come and go will time as a whole be prolific in 
choice and enduring benefits. This is the moral 
of that famous obser\^ation made by the Emperor 
Titus : "1 have lost a day ; for on this day I have 
done no good thing" — a judgment which Charles 
Sumner sought to reverse when he declared that 
the Roman ruler had done a world of good in giv- 
ing utterance to this memorable saying. But in 
the sense intended by Titus, it is indisputably true 
that every day is lost which is allowed to lie fallow, 
and which yields no precious fruit. As little Pippa 
sings : 

O Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, 
A mite of my twelve hours' treasure, 

The least of thy gazes or glances 
(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure), 

One of thy choices or one of thy chances 
(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks of thy pleasure), 
My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure, 
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me. 

I desire, my young friends, to save you from this 
kind of wastefulness and its attendant shame, and 
to this end my present Message is dedicated. Nor 
can I think of any better way in which to render 
effective my desire than by leading you to consider 
time as a trust, a possession, a patrimony, for the 
right use of which you must render an account, 
and in dealing with which you should be pre-emi- 
nently honest. What I shall have to say along this 
line will be applicable to people of all ages : for 
the duties growing out of integrity are binding, 
without intermission, from the cradle to the grave ; 
but if the young can only be persuaded to take 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 33/ 

them up while they are young, they will not only 
escape the errors of which we have spoken, but 
they will assuredly render the sweet summer of life 
tributary to a glorious winter. 

I would have you at the outset realize that, su- 
premely, time belongs to the Almighty, and there- 
fore, that he cannot be defrauded of his own with- 
out grievous guilt being incurred. ''Will a man 
rob God?" was asked by an amazed and indignant 
prophet, and the affirmative answer out of the un- 
seen inculpated the entire nation. In more ways 
than one this insulting thievery continues, and in 
no domain is it more painfully conspicuous than in 
that suggested by our present inquiry. Eveiy year, 
every month, every day, hour, minute, second, be- 
longs to the Ancient of Days ; for each of these 
notes of duration is only a landmark, milestone, 
or boundary line of eternity becoming historical. 
When what we call ''eternity" has its sunrises and 
sunsets, its winters and summers, its cycles and 
periods, its births and deaths, it is changed into 
"time." And surely God has property rights in it 
then just as valid and inalienable as when it existed 
without divisions. If a man shall fence in one 
acre from among the millions he owns, he does not 
thereby surrender his claim to the measured and 
environed land. It is his after the fence is reared 
as it was before. So the Divine Father has not 
abandoned his title to that small section of eter- 
nity which he has set aside and apportioned, or 
the unfolding of his own high purposes regarding 
man's development and destiny. Each moment 
then is his, and he is jealous of its preciousness 

w 



33 B MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

and cannot permit it to be squandered on worth- 
less objects. To pervert, misimprove, or profane 
it, is enough to provoke his indignation. The race 
has deceived itself on this subject by assuming that 
certain hours in a day and a certain day of the 
week belong, in a peculiar and veritable sense, to 
God, and that, outside of these special seasons, the 
creature is ''lord warden" over the years. 

This is an entirely misleading conception, and has 
wrought much mischief to the religious progress of 
the world. The error involved does not lie in sup- 
posing some portions of time to be sacred, but in 
believing that there may be some time that is 
not sacred at all. It is comparatively easy to ob- 
serve appropriately some specified season in a de- 
vout and ceremonial way, but not so easy to live 
devoutly at all seasons, carrying its temper into the 
secularities that engage man's attention. The rev- 
erence for God that sanctifies rest on Sunday ought 
assuredly to sanctify work on Monday ; for work 
is as truly his ordinance as rest. There may be and 
doubtless are, by divine appointment, days that are 
to be used for definite purposes, as for refreshment, 
repose, and public worship ; and there are others 
to be mainly occupied with the claims of business 
and of cognate interests ; but why the spirit of the 
one should be divorced from the other, no one as 
yet has been able to explain. Is trade in and of 
itself unholy? and are engagements outside of the 
church to be considered as necessarily less religious 
than those that are transacted within? and is only 
one seventh of the period of human existence on 
earth to be regarded as worthy of heavenly recog- 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 339 

nition and that alone to be devoted to the culture 
of those graces and the practice of those virtues 
that have their rootage in Christian soil? Such 
assumptions are monstrous, and where they have 
been countenanced, they have degraded six parts 
of the week by creating an impression that these 
may without serious harm be employed wholly in 
serving personal and selfish ends ; and they have 
not in reality exalted the seventh, as that has 
been treated as an unwelcome returning visitor, 
whose object is to impose penances — such as lis- 
tening to long sermons ; or, to change the figure, 
as workshops, necessary though unattractive, where, 
after the wear and tear of six days, man's some- 
what dilapidated moral nature may turn in for re- 
pairs. 

The more such a view is pondered the less ten- 
able does it appear. It belongs essentially to that 
strange, not to say fantastic, religionism which ar- 
rests the stroke of the assassin while the hour of 
prayer lasts, but does not avert it altogether and, 
indeed, imparts to it a kind of merit because of its 
pious pause. Away with it ! Absurd in itself, it 
is the fruitful mother of absurdities. It leads to a 
most complicated and indefensible system of casuis- 
try. Sunday, it is affirmed — and rightly too — is 
given as a day of rest and of worship, on which 
there ought to be release from ordinary toil and 
abundant opportunity for spiritual improvement. 
But it is assumed, as an outgrowth of confused 
ideas concerning what is meant by the term ''sanc- 
tity," or **holy," which in reality only signifies 
"set apart," that family reunions, walks through 



340 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

the fields of golden grain, the contemplation of 
nature or art, and the perusal of helpful literature, 
are subversive of its design and alien to its spirit. 
In my judgment change of day cannot change the 
essential rightness or wrongness of things. To 
work on the first day of the week is wrong, be- 
cause it has been explicitly forbidden by divine 
authority, and because a long course of investiga- 
tion has proven that body and mind need the heb- 
domadal rest. It would be as immoral for man to 
refuse his nightly sleep as it is for him to despise 
the law that necessitates abstinence from toil for 
one entire day in seven. But by what process of 
reasoning it can be shown that engagements which 
do not interfere with this provision become even 
mildly sinful because they are kept on Sunday does 
not very clearly appear. Good books, pleasant 
intercourse with friends, communings with nature, 
afford relaxation and are consistent with the true 
meaning of repose. If it shall be said that they 
interfere with the enjoyment of worship, I must beg 
leave to dissent. Let us remember that worship 
is a spirit as well as an act, and that if the act is 
prolonged unduly it destroys the spirit. Hence it 
has come to pass that the excessive Sabbatarianism 
of a past generation has tended to destroy respect 
even for a reasonable seventh-day observance in 
this. Too much church-going may be itself de- 
structive of that part of the divine law which de- 
mands that we shall rest, and may result in a reac- 
tion against church-going altogether. The act of 
worship should be conscientiously performed, and 
that will doubtless deepen its spirit ; but it has yet 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 34 1 

to be shown that to the devout mind, family asso- 
ciation, commerce with the great thinkers of the 
race, and contemplation of the art masters, are not 
conducive to the constant enlargement and refine- 
ment of this spirit. 

Perhaps it will be answered that an interpreta- 
tion as broad as this will encourage the profane to 
continue their violations of the Lord's Day. But 
let it be remembered that narrower interpretations 
have not influenced them to honor it ; and I more 
than doubt the wisdom of proclaiming a law in 
such terms as to invite practical repudiation of its 
alleged requirements. What is more evident than 
that it is not kept in this latter part of the nine- 
teenth century as some preachers imagine it should 
be kept? We do go out on the Sabbath, though 
Moses commanded otherwise ; we do kindle fires 
in our habitations on the Sabbath ; and we can buy 
victuals on the Sabbath, though Nehemiah con- 
demned the custom ; and we do not kill anybody, and 
nobody, even the most devout, would kill anybody, 
for gathering sticks, or for any other deviation from 
the letter of ancient statutes.^ Multitudes of Chris- 
tians do read the Sunday papers, do travel on the 
Lord's Day, do go to their offices for a few mo- 
ments, and do other things which they had better 
leave undone in communities where the delusion 
prevails that the decalogue reigns supreme. In 
Chicago, theatres are opened on the first day of 
the week, and in Boston we have concerts, where 
even the pretense of "sacredness" is omitted; and 

1 Exod. i6 : 29 ; 35 : 3 ; Neh. 10 : 31 ; Exod. 31 : 14, 15 ; 
Num. 15 : 35. 



342 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

in both cities — and these are only typical of others 
— streets are repaired and various public works are 
attended to as on other days of the week. 

My contention is, that these mutinous acts are 
common in locaHties where Sabbatarianism of the 
most rigid type has been inculcated and legalized ; 
and that, therefore, extreme views, unless they are 
manifestly true, are not the surest means of accom- 
plishing a desirable end. We have lost so much 
under the old method that it cannot but be wise to 
examine anew its soundness and see whether there 
is not more of promise in a change. Personally, I 
have not hesitated to repudiate the current ortho- 
dox exposition with its untenable assumptions, 
which are received with ''Amens" in conventions, 
and quietly ignored in the exigencies of real life. 
I once more affirm that all time is sacred, and that 
Sunday is not grounded in the fourth command- 
ment, but in the teachings of the New Testament 
and the laws of nature, and that it is duly observed 
by entire and complete cessation from ordinary 
toil, combmed with refreshing and recuperating 
rest and spiritual enlargement and public worship. 

I presume it will not be denied that the char- 
acter of engagements and of prevailing thoughts 
afford a fair criterion of the estimate placed on 
passing years. When there is no serious purpose, 
and when hours are a burden to be gotten rid of, 
or an enemy to be slain ; and when Richard the 
Second's saying is forgotten, " I wasted time and 
now doth time waste me" — it is seen how little 
store is set by what is thus foully murdered. Jeremy 
Taylor writes truly : " Idleness is the greatest prod- 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 343 

igality in the world ; it throws away that which is 
invaluable in respect to its present use, and irrepa- 
rable when it is past, being able to be recovered by 
no power of art or nature." And John Milton 
declares that the hours have wings and cany the 
news of their usage to the Great Judge. He adds: 
"Sure if we thought thus, we should dismiss them 
with better reports, and not suffer them to fly away 
empty or laden with dangerous intelligence. How 
happy is it when they carry up not only the mes- 
sage, but the fruits of good, and stay with the An- 
cient of Days to speak for us before his glorious 
throne." 

In what service, my young friends, do you em- 
ploy your hours ? Are they sent out merely to 
gather amusements or pleasures, or have they been 
devoted entirely to mercenary tasks ? Are they so 
occupied with the lower that they afford no oppor- 
tunity for the higher? The contention between 
worldliness and other-worldliness need not be re- 
vived ; but it ought to be realized that we can no 
more live the highest life here without reference to 
the spiritual universe than the earth we tread can 
attain its richest fruitfulness apart from the sun's 
gracious influences. And as the sun is necessary, 
not only one day in seven, but through the entire 
year, so we are able to sanctify our existence only 
as we keep it, through every day and hour, in con- 
scious fellowship with the Unseen. 

To remember the Creator is not merely to 
acknowledge coldly his being, but it is to have 
regard for his pleasure and concern for his glory. 
It is reverently to have in mind his commandments 



344 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

and his revealed will in all our engagements and 
transactions. Whoever remembers God always will 
commit his ways to the divine guidance, and will 
avoid all undertakings, and even all recreations, on 
which the divine blessing cannot be invoked. It 
is to live gladly as in his sight ; it is to walk with 
him ; it is to commune with him unceasingly ; and 
it is to be homed and intempled in him. As we 
would not have him forget us even for a moment, 
and in our graver moods could not contemplate 
such a contingency without terror, so we should 
never forget him whose benefits are more than the 
hairs of our heads. *'At all times his praise shall 
continue to be in my mouth," may well be the pur- 
pose of every soul. When he is considered first 
and foremost, men will hardly dare idle away the 
years, nor permit them to be desecrated by corrup- 
tion in business or by pollution in pleasure. They 
will recognize his claim to all time, and will conse- 
crate it to his *' service" — not meaning by that 
n>.uch-abused word merely acts of public worship, 
but the conduct of life in such manner as to carry 
out his plans and exalt his authority. Thought of 
him will thus come to attach weighty significance 
to every moment, and lead to conscientious solici- 
tude for the wise improvement of the years. As 
they sweep onward they will be freighted with 
deeds of usefulness and benevolence ; and as they 
return to the ocean of eternity, they will not bear 
on their surface the straw and stubble so vehe- 
mently deplored by Lord Bacon, but the precious 
and enduring. In this way, God gets his own 
again and with usury, and man surrenders back 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 345 

that which he had received, after honorably im- 
proving the magnificent trust. 

To many, all this may seem as rhapsody or 
transcendentalism, impossible in this world of hard 
practicalities. And yet I dare venture to proph- 
esy that as society becomes increasingly religious 
and intelligently religious, it will leave far be- 
hind it the false and mischievous interpretation 
of Christianity which has exalted the letter over 
the spirit, and which has identified its life with 
observances, regulations, and special seasons. The 
nineteenth century has been slowly emancipating 
itself from the miserable legalism, ceremonialism, 
and misleading distinctions entailed on it by the 
eighteenth, and is now proclaiming to the twen- 
tieth the fair evangel that all time is holy unless 
profaned by thoughts of evil and deeds of shame, 
and that God is truly served on every day, alike 
in common tasks, in gentle ministries, and in heroic, 
saintly sacrifices. Dr. Martineau has a glimpse of 
this grander age in the following vivid passage : 

"What would you wish to be doing," was the question 
once put to a wise man, " if you knew that you were to die 
the next minute ? " " Just what I am doing now, ' ' was his 
reply, though he was neither repeating the creed nor telling 
his religious experience, but, for aught I know, posting his 
accounts, or talking merry nonsense with his children 
round the fire. Nothing that is worthy of a living man can 
be unworthy of a dying one ; and whatever is shocking in 
the last moment, would be disgraceful in every other. 

While, as I have maintained, all time is the 
Lord's, we are not to forget that he has committed 
it in trust to man, that is, to ourselves and our 



34^ MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

neighbors. That which belongs to our brother 
man we should respect, as we have a right to de- 
mand that he shall respect what belongs to us. If 
we are not to defraud the Almighty, we ought not 
to despoil his steward. But I fear we often rob 
our neighbor of his time, and do so without serious 
sense of guilt. Louis XV. is quoted as having 
said that punctuality is the politeness of kings. 
But to my mind, it is more than politeness ; it is 
honesty. When a service, lecture, or concert is set 
for a certain hour and a thousand or more people 
are present, each person having paid a suitable 
sum in subscription or for tickets, what shall be 
said of the morality of preacher, speaker, or singer 
who dawdles and arrives half an hour or so late? 
Is he not engaged in a species of wholesale robbery, 
depriving the good-natured people of thirty min- 
utes each — an immense total, if the minutes of all 
were added together — an amount also, which, if 
judiciously employed, might prove of inestimable 
worth to its possessors? Suppose I agree to meet 
a banker or railroad president at ten o'clock; in 
what terms can I excuse myself if I deliberately, 
or through carelessness, keep him waiting fifteen 
minutes ? I have no more right to take this from 
his life than I have to deplete his pocket of fifteen 
dollars. If the old saying is true, "Time is money," 
the t\vo transactions sustain a most ominous resem- 
blance to each other. They are, however, rarely 
if ever classed in the same category. 

His sacred majesty of England was offended be- 
cause a bootmaker was not on hand according to 
appointment When at last he did arrive and was 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 34/ 

ushered into the presence of King George, the 
irascible monarch inquired: "How many hours do 
you sleep, sir?" The startled maker of soles re- 
plied, ''Nine hours, may it please your majesty." 
"Nine hours!" continued the irate ruler, "nine 
hours ! The rule is, seven hours' sleep for a man, 
eight for a woman, and nine hours for a fool. Do 
you hear me — nine hours for a fool.' What effect 
this eloquence had, I know not. But the king 
did well to be angry. Shall the head of the 
State submit quietly to being robbed by one of 
his subjects? Is royalty to encourage this kind of 
petit larceny? Bad enough for republics to be 
plundered ; kingdoms surely ought to be exempt. 

Samuel Smiles, in one of his books, revives a 
story of Washington often told in the days of our 
grandfathers. He was afflicted with a very dilatory 
secretary, and on reproving him with that majestic 
sternness which became the Father of his Country, 
he was informed that a tardy and perverse watch 
was to blame ; whereon the immortal George 
crushed the erring scribe by remarking in a soft, 
unimpassioned, but in a far-reaching kind of way, 
"You must get you a new watch, or I must pro- 
cure a new secretary." What a rebuke ! 

But where is the embodiment of dignity, virtue, 
and offended exactness in these degenerated times 
that could deal in as lordly and effective a way 
with those members of society who are always late 
for dinner, late at church, late at bank, late at 
funerals, and always late in paying promissory 
notes ? It is really astonishing how many people 
there are who have no faculty for calculation, unless 



348 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

it be for their own ease and indulgence. Untold 
numbers exist in an absent-minded kind of a way. 
"Why, dear me, if the bells are not ringing for 
meeting, and I had no idea that the morning was 
so far gone !" This is said by housewife and hus- 
band, with a clock staring them in the face as it 
were reproachfully and with watches mockingly 
ticking in their pockets. What more can be done 
for such heedless persons ? The sun rises in the 
morning and its shadows call on us all to mark the 
flight of time. The postman reminds us that the 
hour for the morning delivery has arrived and the 
market men ring the bell to see what we want, 
and yet not a few are oblivious to engagements 
which ought to have been kept. Cathedral bells 
peal in our ears, clocks strike, cuckoos out of 
machinery cuckoo the hour, the quarter, and every 
conceivable thing is done to keep us abreast of 
the passing day. Moreover, there are individuals 
whose irregularity is itself as useful as sun-dial or 
chronometer, and yet we do not learn exactness. 
The hour can alwa}"s be ascertained by their tardy 
movements. At fifteen minutes past eight they 
appear at shop or office, where they should have 
arrived promptly at eight Looking from the 
window the observer can always determine the 
hour by the coming on the scene of these unpunc- 
tual creatures, just as the figures marching before 
the face of the Strasburg clock announce the ap- 
proaching chimes. The minister can tell that it 
is thirty minutes after eleven, for on the thirtieth 
minute his chief parishioner ambles down the cen- 
ter aisle. And yet, notwithstanding these examples 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 349 

of undeviating lateness, society is far from being 
prompt in keeping its engagements. The Bible 
admonishes us not to take thought for the morrow ; 
but these people do not take thought for the day, 
and what is worse, take no thought for the day of 
other people. 

This burglarious disposition unhappily does not 
end with this species of despoilment. Incomputable 
time is wasted by unnecessary calling and by legiti- 
mate calls unduly prolonged. Gentlemen who have 
no concern for their own livelihood inflict themselves 
on busy men who have either to work or starve, and 
theorists with the wildest of schemes, and agents in- 
numerable with all kinds of articles to sell, intrude on 
those who are under obligations to do just so much 
within prescribed limits, and imagine themselves 
badly treated if they are not welcomed with open 
arms and listened to indefinitely. Especially are 
pastors the victims of these time-stealers. They are 
expected to grant prolonged audiences to every 
one who has a book to sell, a mission to plead, a 
hobby to ride, or a pious fad to advocate. If they 
presume to remonstrate they are reported as lacking 
in sympathy. Members of the congregation also 
join in this crusade against the clergyman's prop- 
erty. They not only pay unnecessary calls, but 
they complain that they are not visited enough in 
return. In some parishes it is demanded that the 
pastor be continually trudging from house to 
house, with no end in view except by euphonious 
chatter to entertain the fault-finding saints. In 
this way precious hours which should be given to 
study, to pulpit preparation, or to the real business 




350 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

of the church, are fooHshly and even wickedly 
squandered. And yet we are wondering at the 
close of this nineteenth century, that Christianity 
has not progressed farther and triumphed more 
completely. No need is there for amazement, for 
among other inanities is this despicable misdirec- 
tion of the ministry. The underlying assumption 
that the clergyman is a social factor, and that he is 
bound to be a hanger-on at the houses of the rich, 
and impart a kind of social distinction by frequent- 
ing the homes of those who are struggling tp be 
rich, and that he ought to be a winged shuttlecock 
between the rival battledores of his congregation, 
affording all delightful entertainment, is mischievous 
in the extreme. When such folly comes to an end, 
and when preachers are serious in a serious cause, 
and when they recognize the stern fact that Chris- 
tianity, even in England and America, has not yet 
captured the country, and when they devote them- 
selves to their real work — the work of seeking the 
lost, reclaiming the wandering, and enlightening a 
world still in the darkness of unbelief — then, and 
not till then, will our religion convince and con- 
quer. 

Letter writing has become another means by 
which innocent individuals are defrauded of many 
precious hours. I would not complain if all epis- 
tles resembled those of Seneca, of Madame de 
Sevigne, or of Jane Welsh Carlyle ; but they do 
not. There are, of course, communications, how- 
ever poorly penned, of affection and business, that 
ought to be gratefully received. But what shall be 
said of innumerable letters that have no earthly 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 35 I 

motive apart from the vanity of the sender, unless 
we except in some instances the uncomfortable 
benevolence of persons who are anxious to sacri- 
fice others to the cause they have very much at 
heart? Oceans of unnecessary ink deluge the 
philanthropic annually. Missives of every shape 
and size are addressed to them in the name of 
suffering humanity. They are cajoled in long 
periods of doubtful rhetoric, or are threatened in 
endless sentences of undoubted demagoguery, to 
place a liberal portion of their cash at the disposal 
of the writer. Editors, clergymen, politicians, and 
capitalists, are continually infested by epistles that 
often prove as worrying and torturing as sanguinary 
mosquitoes. These notes, communications, appeals, 
flutter and buzz and complacently sting and leave 
the helpless victim without redress. 

Some correspondents desire advice. They are 
perhaps anxious to ascertain whether, in the judg- 
ment of the eminent man — alas, poor wretch ! — 
they have chosen to consult, they are best fitted for 
the press, the pulpit, the bar, or the stage. It may 
be that they purpose to buy a piano, sewing machine, 
washer, or wringer, and sadly need the counsel of 
preachers who never owned a piano, or of journalists 
who are familiar with almost every kind of machine, 
especially that of politics, but not with the particular 
one concerning which information is requested. 
Theories of reform, philosophic schemes, poems, 
novels, are submitted to the inspection of busy 
people, and always with the sole expectation of ap- 
proval, criticism being the last thing desired. I re- 
member making a suggestion or two to a poetical 



352 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

friend — masculine gender — ^who favored me with an 
hour and a half of metrical prose, and who professed 
a flattering regard for my opinion. My suggestions 
were offered in the spirit of modesty and defer- 
ence ; but his grieved expression and his testy 
manner proved only too conclusively that his muse 
was more than offended. I now have it under- 
stood that no poets need apply for ''aid or com- 
fort" ; but it is impossible to characterize or set in 
order the vast variety of subjects that are embodied 
in letters or that are made the occasion for their 
production. At this moment millions of pens, 
having nothing else to do, are composing epistles 
that v/ill only waste untold hours of unoffending in- 
dividuals who shall be entrapped into their perusal. 
And yet we extol cheap postage and eulogize the 
memories of the men who invented this method of 
rendering miserable the lives of public personages ; 
and it has been proposed, that this misery may be 
intensified, to reduce the price of letter postage to 
one cent, or a half-penny. How shall such a con- 
spiracy as this be dealt with? How protect the 
fev/ remaining moments left to prominent charac- 
ters from the rapacious exactions of conscienceless 
correspondents? Indifference does not end the 
wretchedness, for the unanswered communication 
generally brings another, and one particularly abu- 
sive, that alleges all sorts of infamies against the 
hard heart that has persisted in maintaining silence. 
I am sadly afraid that the much-envied great must 
take the bitter with the sweet and amiably submit 
to being robbed by any scribbler who has not the 
fear of the eighth commandment before his eyes. 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 353 

But there is a more serious aspect of the crime 
I am condemning that ought not to pass unnoticed. 
Much has been written of late regarding fewer 
hours of labor. It has been argued, and with rea- 
son too, that the shorter day should be generally 
recognized as more conducive to industrial progress 
and to social well-being than the longer one that 
has through many centuries been demanded of suf- 
fering toil. Facts are not favorable to the belief 
that physical exertion carried beyond a reasonable 
limit can prove advantageous either to the indi- 
vidual himself or to the community at large. Prior to 
1 8 19, women, and even children, slaved in England 
through fourteen hours each day, and the deteriora- 
tion of the race was so manifest that these hours 
were reduced in number to twelve, and the physical 
and moral advantages of this change were so great 
that in 1825 there was a further reduction to eleven. 
Still encouraged by the salutary effects of the move- 
ment, the ten-hour law was adopted in 1847. 
Even this scale has been lowered in some trades, 
with marked benefit to both the capitalist and 
laborer. Instead of this partial release from toil 
leading to idleness and dissipation, the uniform tes- 
timony is that in proportion as it has been obtained, 
industrious and temperate habits have increased 
among the people. In Australia, from 1855, started 
by James Stephens, a mason, the eight-hour rule 
came into vogue, and its operation has justified its 
economic soundness. Of the population one in 
eight is a depositor in the savings-bank, and an 
American consul testifies that ''the moral and phys- 
ical condition of the people is sound and healthful." 

X 



354 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

The example of the antipodes may well encour- 
age the rest of the world to adopt similar humane 
\-iews. Certainl}-, with this instance before us, we 
have not an excuse, even in selfishness, for the 
policy that leaves the workman no time for ade- 
quate recuperation, for domestic duties, and personal 
improvement Is it not immoral to take advan- 
tage of the necessities of the poor and leave them 
to star\^e or force them to such prolonged labor 
as must result in their deterioration? An indus- 
trial sj'stem that robs men and women of the time 
needed for rest, refreshment, recreation, and culture, 
and that brutalizes mind and body as the price of 
the meagerest subsistence, is fundamentally and rad- 
ically false and pernicious. Ever\' individual has 
inalienable rights which he cannot barter for daily 
bread, nor another ignore and despise without mani- 
fest guilt To compel a woman or a man to work 
twelve hours because he must or perish of hunger, 
is on a par with the high-handed proceedings of 
the footpad who, pistol in hand, demands "your 
money or your life." Yet this crime is being per- 
petually committed in many lands and ver\' few 
seem to realize its moral turpitude. That a portion 
— and that a small portion — of society* may be 
rich and increased in goods, the larger portion 
must consent to be deprived of ever\- opportunit}' 
favorable to personal happiness and must not even 
complain of the injustice wTought 

I protest against the entire proceeding. It is an 
outrao;e against humanity*, and none would dare 
perpetrate it if they in realit}* ever remembered 
God, their Creator. Were employers and the cap- 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 355 

tains of industry only to consider God, to consider 
that he is interested in the welfare of all his crea- 
tures, and to consider that their time is, in a true 
sense, his time as well, they would not so glibly 
defend the wholesale dishonesty that leaves no time 
either for God's worship or for man's recuperation 
and enjoyment But while this species of thievery 
is to be condemned on the one hand, on the other 
that disposition frequently manifested on the part 
of mechanics, laborers, and helpers in almost every 
pursuit to waste hours that they have covenanted 
to devote to the semce of their masters is not in 
any wise to be condoned or excused. There have 
been many instances where complaint has been 
warranted against workmen for idling, even when 
an excessive day was not exacted. In such cir- 
cumstances they need not be surprised if they are 
dealt with summarily, and it is only reasonable to 
believe that such disastrous dilatoriness must tend 
to postpone indefinitely the hopes that are being 
fostered of a fairer age, when every available mo- 
ment shall not be consumed in the hard struggle 
to maintain a pitiable and beggarly existence. 

But the dishonesty I have been considering in 
this Message may be perpetrated in another form. 
A young man may prodigally squander his own 
time and may in this manner sin against himself as 
he may transgress against his neighbor. Michael 
Faraday, when a poor apprentice, utilized every 
moment, and in a letter to a boy friend he wrote : 
"Time is all I require. Oh, that I could purchase 
at a cheap rate some of our modern gents' spare 
hours — nay, days ! I think it would be a good bar- 



356 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

gain both for them and for me." He perceived 
the desperate folly of the youths who suffered from 
eiimii because they had nothing to do. Time, as I 
have argued, is a possession, whether it is ours or 
our neighbor's, for the administration of which we 
shall be held accountable. It is another word for 
earthly opportunit}', and we ought with patient 
diligence to turn it to the best account, both for 
the life that now is and for the life that is to come. 
Much depends on the value we instinctively attach 
to minutes and seconds, as to whether we make 
the most of our brief pilgrimage. There are mul- 
titudes who never seem to wake up to a great or 
promising occasion until it has passed, and who are 
always too late for decisive action. Of General 
Grant it has been said that if he was not a great 
soldier, at least he was always "a 7iigh man " ; that 
is, as Von ^loltke would have expressed it, '*he was 
always on hand at the right time and at the right 
place and with a superior force." The lads who are 
graphically characterized b\* the pen of an un- 
known contemporary, in the following story or 
sketch, illustrate this point admirably : 

*' Thirty years ago, Mr. H., a nurseryman, left 
home for a day or two. It was rainy weather, and 
not the season for sales ; but a customer arrived 
from a distance, tied up his horse and went into 
the kitchen of the farmhouse where t\vo lads were 
cracking nuts. 

*'*Mr. H. at home?' 

"*No, sir,' said the eldest, Joe, hammering at a 
nut. 

'"When will he be back?' 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 357 

**'Dunno, sir. Mebbe not for a week.' 

"The other boy, Jem, jumped up and followed the 
man out. 'The men are not here, but I can show 
you the stock,' he said with such a bright, court- 
eous manner that the stranger, who was a little 
irritated, stopped and followed him through the 
nursery, examined the trees and left an order. 

'' * You have sold the largest lot I have had this 
season, Jem,' said his father, greatly pleased, on his 
return. 

*" I'm sure,' said Joe, T was as willing to help as 
Jem, if I'd thought in time.' 

"A few years afterward these two boys were left 
by their father's failure with but two hundred 
dollars and three hundred dollars each. Joe bought 
an acre or two near home. He has worked hard, 
and is still a poor, discontented man. Jem bought 
an emigrant's ticket to Colorado, took a place as a 
cattle driver for a couple of years, with his wages 
bought land at forty cents an acre, built himself a 
house and married. His herds of cattle are num- 
bered by the thousand, his land has been cut up 
for town lots, and he is one of the wealthiest men 
in the State. 

" T might have done like Jem,' his brother said 
lately, 'if I'd thought in time. There's as good 
stuff in me as in him.' 

'' * There's as good stuff in that loaf of bread as 
in any I ever made,' said his wife, * but nobody 
can eat it. There's not enough yeast in it.' The 
retort, though disagreeable, was true. The quick, 
wide-awake energy which acts as leaven in a char- 
acter is partly natural ; but it can be inculcated by 



358 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

parents and acquired by a boy if he chooses to 
keep his eyes open and to act promptly and boldly 
in even' emer^encv^'' 

One of the saddest instances of the disastrous 
results of procrastination, of the infirmit}- that 
afflicted dilatory- and drows>' Joe, was furnished 
during the season of 189 1 on the New York Cen- 
tral Railroad. An accident occured to a train, and 
it lay in the way of other trains that were rapidly 
following on the same track. A brakeman was 
dispatched in hot haste back to a little station a 
mile or t^vo away, that he might flag the St 
Louis express. He arrived in season for the ac- 
complishment of Ills mission, but instead of doing 
what he had to do prompdy he entered the station 
just for a moment to exchange a friendly word 
with the master. Scarcely had he uttered his salu- 
tation when the rushing noise of a train recalled 
him to a sense of dut\'. He hurried impetuously 
back to the platform, only to discover that he was 
too late. The St Louis express had dashed by un- 
warned and in a few minutes aften\ard had crashed 
into the obstructing coaches, and men and women 
were wounded, maimed, killed. If the unfortunate 
brakeman, whose guilty leisureUness caused this ter- 
rible catastrophe. sur\'ives his crime, probably, with 
scores of other triflers. he wonders why he has not 
been chosen to the presidency of a railroad com- 
pany. The secret of failure, in no small number 
of instances, we have disclosed in this apparent 
fatal inabilit\' to meet the demands of a grave and 
momentous crisis. In poHtics, in rehgion, in busi- 
ness, indeed in every^ department of thought and 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 359 

action, plans miscarry and discomfiture shames, be- 
cause the golden opportunity has been frittered 
away by those who were not quick enough to dis- 
cern its preciousness and significance. 

It is Shakespeare who writes: ** There is a tide 
in the affairs of men, which taken at its flood leads 
on to fortune." So also Schiller in *'The Picco- 
lomini" : 

Seize, seize the hour, 
Ere it slips from you. Seldom comes the moment 
In life which is indeed subhme and mighty. 

Never was there truer sentiment. Every youth 
will, sooner or later, be brought face to face with 
advantageous circumstances which, if improved, 
will result in manifold blessings. To employ a 
current expression, ** every man has his chance" — 
his ''chance" to free himself from over-mastering 
evil, to carve for himself a name and place in this 
busy world, and a ''chance" to rise above the 
earthy temper of his spirit and approach to the 
heavenly purity of the saved. With a burst of 
virtuous indignation an English writer, contemplat- 
ing the miserable lot of thousands of our fellow- 
beings in the world, and comparing it with what 
may possibly be their condition in the great here- 
after, exclaims as though singular in the conviction, 
"I believe that God will give every man a chance." 
I do not question the soundness of the faith. But 
I think we are too much inclined to the opinion 
that the wretched masses of people who excite our 
compassion have never enjoyed the opportunity of 
being other than they are, or of acting differently 



360 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

than they do ; and that what has been denied them 
here ought to be afforded them in the world be- 
yond. I do not wish to discuss in this volume the 
relations of the present to the future ; nor is it 
necessan,', for it is clear to my mind that ever}- soul 
in the course of its earthly histor}- is brought, per- 
haps more than once, under conditions favorable to 
its highest good. 

There are few men who have made shipwreck of 
themselves, who have gone through a series of 
vears from disaster to disaster, and who have been 
a snare and a curse to others, who cannot, on look- 
ing back, see where they have made fatal mistakes, 
and where if they had acted otherwise than they 
did the outcome would have been vastly different. 
Who is there that cannot recall some auspicious 
moment when unseen hands threw open wide the 
portals to success, Avhen a competency, if not afflu- 
ence, was placed within his reach ; who cannot re- 
member some precious season when the heart was 
moved as by invisible angels to repentance, and 
when aspirations to a nobler and purer life were 
awakened and fanned almost into a flame ? Per- 
haps it was in early manhood, when hopes ran 
high, when courage was abiding, and when a proud 
consciousness prevailed that no enemy could daunt, 
no obstacle impede, that suddenly, unexpectedly, 
the testing hour came. As we now mournfully 
look back we see if, when the war broke out, when 
the fire raged, when the estate descended to us, 
when the enterprise was proposed, or when the 
way of retreat was opened from some questionable 
calling, we had only been equal to the emergency 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 36 1 

we would be immeasurably better off in worth of 
character and estate than we are. It may have 
happened in later years that we were brought to 
"where two roads meet," and at their junction 
paused irresolute, realizing the immense importance 
of our decision, and now regret that we did not 
choose the one we then declined to tread. 

That was a supreme moment in the history of 
Columbus when he craved a drink of water at a 
convent door when the good prior, drawn to him 
by the grandeur of his plans, supplied him with 
letters of introduction which opened the way for 
the discovery of a new world. Without this op- 
portunity his magnificent schemes might have mis- 
carried ; but with it how many men would never 
have succeeded ! That was a supreme moment to 
Martin Luther when the pope's bull was published 
in his German home, and when his own usefulness 
and happiness centered in its defiant destruction. 
How few would have the courage in these days to 
commit it, as he did, to the flames ! and yet had 
not the Reformer done so he would have regretted 
it all his days. That was a supreme moment in 
the career of Ignatius Loyola when, on the walls 
of Pampeluna, the cannon-shot fractured his legs 
and forced him into seclusion, whence the hot- 
blooded Spanish soldier might have come forth a 
saint, but instead came forth a Jesuit That was a 
supreme moment when Wallenstein halted between 
loyalty to the empire and his own aggrandizement. 
That was a supreme moment in the turbulent life 
of Nelson when he turned his blind eye to the sig- 
nal that had been hoisted for him to retire from 



362 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

before Copenhagen, and continued the fight for the 
honor of his country. It was then that his relation 
to the victory at Trafalgar was practically decided. 
That was a supreme moment to General Grant when 
he was appointed to command in the Southwest, 
and made it possible for him at last to receive the 
sword of General Lee ; and yet how many might 
have fought on the Cumberland who would only 
have demonstrated their unfitness to lead an army 
on the James. Such also was the moment in the 
life of Napoleon, when Barras proposed, in the 
hour of the Convention's peril, that the young 
general should command its meagre forces. 

And thus to every one, in great degree and small, 
comes the favorable opportunity, the hour for which 
all previous hours have been made — the great divide 
from whose summit the traveler will rush down 
either into the chilly valleys of the north, or into the 
warm, sunny, flowery vales of the south. That is a 
supreme moment in life when the lad becomes dis- 
tinctly conscious of the great world of nature that 
lies around him, and hears its merry voices sounding 
in winds and waves, murmuring in leaves of trees 
and warbling of birds, and saying : ** Ask what thou 
w^lt, and even to the half of my kingdom will I 
give you." That is a supreme moment too, when 
the youth is brought into the presence of the mighty 
dead, who survive forevermiore in their recorded 
thoughts, and whose shades, bending lovingly over 
the inquiring mind, seem to whisper : **Be it unto 
thee even as thou wilt" That, also, is a moment 
never to be forgotten when the sacred majesty of 
religion first sheds its holy halo on the dusty path 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 363 

of life, when inspired men of God and the exalted 
Christ come near the soul and breathe in its inner 
chambers the divine messages of grace and peace. 
Supreme moments, each to be followed by others, 
in their time supreme as well ; but by none whose 
magnitude and solemn import shall ever surpass 
these more familiar ones which are the common 
heritage of all ! 

Robert Browning, in "Paracelsus," sings: 

' Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to you ; they sit all day 
Beside you, and lie down at night by you, 
Who care not for their presence, muse, or sleep ; 
And all at once they leave you, and you know them. 

And some one has said, "We prize our bless- 
ings when they are flown," but all our regrets, 
weeping, and remorse will never — can never — bring 
them back again. The angels that once were near 
nevermore return to those who have slighted their 
presence and scorned their favor. And if these 
great occasions are frittered away, and if the day 
that dawns glorious in promise is allowed to pass 
unheeded and unimproved, and if all the years are 
dealt with improvidently, what kind of old age 
must inevitably follow? If the young man turns 
brigand and desperately plunders God, his neigh- 
bor, and himself of time, and if he puts this most 
precious of all commodities to no worthy use, he 
need not be surprised to find himself shut up to 
some type of an unlovely and unlovable age. It 
may correspond to the mental and physical con- 
dition of Polonius, whom Hamlet calls " the great 



364 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

baby . . . not yet out of his swaddling clouts." Or 
it may recall the last sad days of Southey, when he 
played in a vacant way with his books ; or the 
wretchedness of Charles V., idly fashioning pup- 
pets in his convent as he had molded statesmen 
and generals in the vigor of his life. What more 
lamentable than the sight of Dean Swift, in his 
decrepitude, weeping over a book he had written 
in his prime, and realizing that like a tree he was 
"withering at the top," mournfully exclaiming, 
"What a genius I had when I wrote that!" Is 
there not something humiliating in the picture 
drawn of the famous Marlborough, when feeble and 
imbecile, listening to an account of one of his own 
battles, and inquiring with wonder who was the 
commander? I do not say that this blight of the 
faculties, this maudlin senility, may not come when 
life, as a whole, has been energetically directed ; 
but in the majority of instances they witness to 
abuse of God's law and indicate that time has not 
always been wisely employed. Cicero claims that 
the extreme loss of strength as the end draws nigh 
is due to its being wastefully expended in early 
years ; and certainly the loss of beauty and moral 
dignity is due to this cause. Cato the elder en- 
treated his contemporaries not to add the disgrace 
of wickedness to old age. Addison writes wisely, 
as he usually does, when, in the "Tatler," he ad- 
vises those v/ho are increasing the number of their 
years to abstain from the pleasures and gallantries 
of youth, adding that the infirmities attending the 
final stage of life would be much fewer "if we did 
not affect those which attend the more vigorous 



DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 365 

and active part of our days," the ambition of some 
being ''to be the same sort of fools they were for- 
merly." Mournful and disgusting in the last degree 
the portrait of Mr. Justice Shallow, painted by the 
unerring brush of the great dramatist, who loved 
to relate salacious and lickerish stories of his stu- 
dent times, and to make himself out a perfect hero 
of debauchery. *'0, the mad days that I have 
spent!" he exclaims to his brother justice. Was 
not Shallow once of Clement's Inn, where he thinks 
they still talk of him? He was called lusty Shal- 
low then : 

Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that 
this knight and I have seen ! — Ha, sir John, said I 
well? 

Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shal- 
low. 

Shal. That we have, that we have, that we have ; in faith. 
Sir John, we have ; our watchword was. Hem, boys! 
— Come, let' s to dinner ; come, let' s to dinner : 
— O, the days that we have seen ! Come, come. 

What can be pictured more forlorn and despicable 
than this driveling specimen of octogenarian hu- 
manity? Nor has the species entirely disappeared 
from the earth. There are still toothless monsters, 
vicious and lascivious, who hang around young girls 
with disgusting freedom. They are senile, soiled, 
smutty, snuffy, and sensual, and their slimy touch 
brings defilement and despair. I cannot but liken 
them to the awful glacier cliff frequently described 
by writers, called the ''Victoria Barrier," which de- 
scends into the sea from the frozen sides of the 
burning volcano, Mount Erebus. In the hearts of 



366 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

such old men. there rages a quenchless fire. The 
winter of hfe yet contains more than tropical heat 
in its bosom, and the ice of age has not cooled 
the passions of youth. And as from the sides of 
Erebus masses break away to invade the seas where 
sailors pursue their trade, imperiling life and cargo, 
so from these disreputable sinners emanate cjTiical 
and corrupting influences that desolate and destroy 
the unsuspecting and the innocent 

Onlv a trifle less forbidding the closing davs on 
earth that are charged through and through with 
repinings, snarhngs, and bitter complainings. There 
are gentlemen whose hair is white and whose forms 
are bent, who are critical, captious, querulous, and 
fault-finding, seeing no good in the present and 
full of forebodings regarding the future. They are 
not sustained by pleasant memories nor cheered by 
triumphant hopes. Spared b}* an inscrutable proW- 
dence to the full hmit of three-score years and ten, 
all they can do is to fill the residue of their days 
with growls, moans, wails, and dark prophesjdngs. 
They render themselves nuisances to an unoflTend- 
ing generation that is bound by law to endure them 
as long as they continue to tarr\- in a world they so 
thoroughly detest The darkness of night rests on 
their nature, because thev have from the begin- 
ning turned from the light just as the earth is en- 
veloped in blackness as it turns its bosom from 
the sun ; and they are the unlovely \^'itnesses of the 
ravages wrought by the offended years. When 
these decrepit and misanthropic beings hobble by 
and join the procession of others less reputable 
than themselves but equally forlorn and wretched, 



• DEALING HONESTLY WITH TIME 367 

they recall a wasted past and foreshadow an aveng- 
ing future. To squander time entails the possi- 
bility of a bankrupt eternity. Yes ; eternity takes 
up the cause of outraged time and tenibly avenges 
the insults that are heaped upon it by the reckless. 
Be warned, then, my young friends. Why should 
you ruin yourselves irretrievably? Why, by your 
improvidence, doom yourselves to everlasting pau- 
perism? Hear, if not this Message, the voice of 
the wise jester who, as described by the eloquent 
Bishop Hall, has made plain the insensate conduct 
of those who sacrifice the '* hereafter" to listless- 
ness and viciousness in the ''here." 

"I remember," writes the bishop, "our witty country- 
man, Bromiard, tells us of a lord in his time that had a 
fool in his house, as many great men in those days had 
for their pleasure, to whom this lord gave a staff, and 
charged him to keep it till he should meet with one that 
was more fool than himself, and if he met with such a one 
to deliver it over to him. Not many years after, this lord 
fell sick, and indeed was sick unto death. His fool came 
to see him and was told by the sick lord that he must now 
shortly leave him. 'And whither wilt thou go?' said the 
fool. 'Into another world,' said the lord. 'And when 
wilt thou come again ? within a month? ' ' No.' 'Within 
a year?' 'No.' 'When then?' 'Never.' 'Never? And 
what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there, 
whither thou goest ? ' 'None at all.' 'No?' said the fool, 
'none at all? Here, take my staff. Art thou going away 
forever, and hast taken no order nor care how thou shalt 
speed in that other world, whence thou shalt never return ? 
Take my staff ; for I am not guilty of any such folly as 
this.'" 



XI 

ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 

He, whose hours 
Are by domestic pleasures tincaressed 
And unenlivened ; who exists whole years 
Apart from benefits received or done 
'Mid the transactions of the bustling crowd ; 
Who neither hears nor feels a wish to hear 
Of the worlcPs interests — such a one hath need 
Of a quick fancy, and an active heart, 
That, for the day's consufnption, BOOKS may yield 
A not unwholesome food, and earth and air 
Supply his morbid humor with delight. 

THERE is some sense, and manifestly more 
sense than poetry, in the following lines 
from England's greatest dramatist : 

Study is like the heaven' s glorious sun, 

That will not be deep search' d with saucy looks, 

Small have continual plodders ever won, 
Save base authority from others' books. 

So study evermore is overshot ; 

While it doth study to have what it would. 
It doth forget to do the thing it should : 

And when it hath the thing it hunteth most. 

'Tis won, as towns with fire ; so won, so lost. 

Shakespeare is undoubtedly correct. There 
ought to be some adequate proportion between 
the intellectual and the practical life. To deteri- 
368 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 369 

orate in worthiness of character as knowledge is 
increased ; to become helpless in ordinary affairs 
as the mind accumulates its wealth, is one of the 
saddest contingencies ever contemplated. Of what 
particular value **the authority" we may have be- 
come familiar with, if we have sacrificed the power 
of independent thought ! And of what service the 
conquest of a city if it has been subdued by such 
methods as to render its treasures unavailable ! 
These surely are instances of " Love's labor lost." 

Against such mistakes we are warned by differ- 
ent authors of eminence. Carlyle writes : " It is 
not by books alone, nor by books chiefly, that a 
man becomes in all parts a man. A man perfects 
himself by work much more than by reading." 
Hence Canon Kingsley expresses the sentiment, 
''This is the true and heroical rest which only is 
worthy gentlemen and sons of God." And Dr. 
Arnold has recorded a similar conviction : *' I would 
rather send a boy to Van Dieman's Land, where he 
must work for his bread, than send him to Oxford 
to live in luxury, without any desire in his mind to 
avail himself of his advantages." 

The studious habit may be overdone. Culture 
may be too excessive for the real good of the 
native mental soil, and reading may degenerate 
into a mere diversion, withdrawing human energy 
from serious and imperative obligations. My first 
word therefore has to be one of warning against 
extremes and against unwisdom in the pursuit of a 
most laudable object. 

I would have my young readers adopt as their 
creed the resolution governing the Ruskinian Guild 

Y 



D/ 



O MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



of St Georc^e : "I w^A strive to raise mv own bodv 
and soul daily into higher power of dut\- and hap- 
piness ; not in rivalship or contention with others, 
but for the delight and honor of others, and for 
the joy and peace of my o^ii hfe." And I would 
have them in purposing this nobly realize that, 
while not eveiything, — and, indeed, far from being 
ever}-thing, — familiarit}^ with valuable books, ac- 
cording to the author of "Sesame and Lihes," may 
in no small degree conduce to its ultimate attain- 
ment That is, reading and study are means 
amoHCT other means ; not on the one hand to be 
overestimated, nor on the other to be ignored, 
especially in this age when, as Heine expresses it, 
** the intellectual dominion of the individual has 
ceased — the intellectual rule of the many has com- 
menced." 

I have no doubt that the Apostle Paul, when he 
exhorted Timothy to "give attendance to reading," 
had special and perhaps exclusive reference to the 
reading of the Scriptures. This is the \dew of the 
most eminent critics, and I see no reason for ques- 
tioning its soundness. Above and before all other 
writings ought the Bible to be prized. Viewed 
simply as literature its claims are paramount ; such 
a composition, for instance, as that of "Job" sur- 
passing in genuine poetic spirit that of " Faust" 
while the magnificent flights of eloquence that fill 
the pages of *' Isaiah" are unmatched by Words- 
worth ; and not e^en Browning, though in some 
respects suggesting his dramatic and metaphysical 
st\*le, can compare with Jeremiah in loftiness of 
thought and grandeur of expression. 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 37 1 

Readily can we comprehend the soHcitude of 
Fryth, as set forth in his reply to Sir Thomas More : 
"This hath been offered you, is offered, and shall 
be offered. Grant that the word of God, I mean 
the text of Scripture, may go abroad in our Eng- 
lish tongue, . . and my brother Tyndale and I 
have done, and will promise you to write no more. 
If you will not grant this condition, then will we be 
doing while we have breath, and show in few words 
that the Scripture doth in many, and so at least 
save some." ^ And with similar ardor should we 
make a way for the Bible in our own intellectual 
life, convinced that its relation to us as individuals 
will stimulate mental activity and refinement as it 
has always quickened national enlightenment and 
culture. As the literatures of England and Ger- 
many have their roots in this sacred soil, so should 
we venerate and honor it, that it may once more 
and forever nourish mighty trees and fragrant flow- 
ers of America's future thinkers and singers. Im- 
portant and necessary is it that such a word as this 
should be spoken at the present time, when so 
many seem minded to put the Bible away. The 
Bible has not only been removed from the common 
schools in many places and prayer forbidden, but, 
as Mulford says in his book, "The Nation," it has 
been "removed from the course of study in uni- 
versities and from academies, and has no place, 
corresponding simply as a history and literature to 
the history and literature of Greece and Rome." 

That Bible whose composition appealed to the 

^ *' Doctrine of the Sacrament." 



372 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

refined taste of ^Matthew Arnold ; that Bible whose 
dignit}' and sublimity aroused the soul of Heine so 
that he regarded the volume as a breath of para- 
dise ; that Bible whose prose the skeptical Frederic 
Harrison extols so highly ; that Bible which George 
Eliot read daily at Witely, and which was to her a 
very precious and sacred book ; yea, that Bible 
which even Diderot, while rejecting, commended 
to his child as her best guide in morals and purity ; 
that Bible the cross-roads statesmen who acquire 
so remarkable an influence in our State legislatures 
will not permit so much as to be named in the 
secular halls of learning which they have voted to 
rear. And it is clear to me, if the present ten- 
dency is not checked, we shall find in this country, 
especially in the Northwest, that the only schools 
where religion is taught will be those of the Roman 
Catholic faith, which means in the long run a 
Roman Catholic population, or what is worse, an 
atheistical and anarchical one. 

While Paul's admonition centers in the duty of 
the minister to know and interpret revelation, it is 
not to be so construed as to preclude or prohibit 
the perusal of other volumes. Let us not forget 
that he who addressed Timothy was himself a 
scholar. Not only does he quote, in his famous 
speech on ]\Iars Hill, the Greek poets, Cleanthes 
and Aratus, but, as Dr. Lightfoot has shown at 
length and with considerable ingenuity', evinces fa- 
miliar acquaintance with the teachings of his con- 
temporary', Seneca the Stoic. 

Paul assures us that "the God who made the 
world and all things therein . . . dwelleth not in 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 373 

temples made with hands," and Seneca writes : 
"Temples must not be built to God of stones piled 
on high : he must be consecrated in the heart of 
man." Moreover, the apostle declares that God is 
"not far from every one of us" ; while the philoso- 
pher says, "God is near thee ; he is with thee; he 
is within." Other parallels might be noted, but 
these are sufficient for our purpose.^ 

These agreements, if nothing more, indicate the 
breadth and varied character of Paul's attain- 
ments, and fully warrant the inference that while 
he would at all times give the first place to the 
Scriptures, he would not be so understood as to 
deter ministers or laymen from familiar companion- 
ship with uninspired authors. I therefore feel at 
perfect liberty to enlarge the scope of his words to 
the measure of his enlightened spirit, and to urge 
on my young friends to honor their youth by giv- 
ing themselves to reading in every distinctive field 
throughout the glorious "Republic of Letters." 

It is not, however, to be concealed that the wis- 
dom of thus countenancing and encouraging the stu- 
dious perusal of volumes outside of those which com- 
prise what Jerome termed "The Divine Library" 
(Bibliotheca Divinct) has been seriously questioned 
in the past, and is not uniformly conceded in the 
present. In the so-called "Apostolical Constitu- 
tions," heathen books are condemned; "for what 
hast thou to do with such foreign discourses, or 
laws, or false prophets which subvert the faith of 
the unstable ? " Gregory the Great (a. d. 544-604) 

*See Lightfoot on " Philippians." 



374 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

forbade ecclesiastics of the highest as well as of 
the lowest rank to study heathen literature, and re- 
proved the Bishop of Vienna for teaching the 
clergy grammar, which necessitated some degree 
of familiarity with the works of uninspired writers. 
While these extreme views are no longer held 
among enlightened leaders, occasionally an ambi- 
tious layman or an obscure preacher renders him- 
self conspicuous by denouncing the acquisition of 
secular knowledge. Sometimes a business man, 
'■' a baker or candlestick maker," whose monetary 
success has abnormally developed his self-assur- 
ance, undertakes to lecture the meek and long-suf- 
fering pastors of pious flocks on the impropriety, 
not to say the manifest wickedness, of presuming 
to read anything but the Bible. That they should 
dip into science ; that they should treasure in their 
memories the flummeries of the rhetoricians ; that 
they should acquaint themselves with the princi- 
ples of art or the abstruse abstractions of philos- 
ophy, especially as they are living in a world fast 
hastening to endless perdition — are iniquitous grati- 
fications incomprehensible to the indignant critic. 
It is not, of course, to be supposed that this horri- 
fied layman is representative of a very large con- 
stituency, but his type unhappily makes up in viru- 
lence and acrimony what it lacks in extent and in- 
telligence. 

It is of little use to argue with such men. They 
are entrenched in intolerance and ignorance, and 
the world must patiently await their slow extinc- 
tion through the operation of that most precious 
law which, in the long run, exterminates what is 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 3/5 

unfit to survive. Useless it were to remind them 
that Moses was learned in the lore of the Egyp- 
tians, and that Solomon was wise in all kinds of 
wisdom, and that John was evidently taught in the 
philosophy of Alexandria, and that Paul was not 
indifferent to the claims of heathen classics. In 
some way satisfactory to themselves they dispose 
of all such cases, and with an amusing air of infalli- 
bility repeat and reaffirm an Index Expurgatorius 
so impartially all-exclusive as to excite the envy of 
the Vatican authorities. 

While these incorrigibles may be left severely 
alone, it may not be amiss to address a few words 
of remonstrance to members of the younger gen- 
eration who, unhappily, are not altogether beyond 
the reach of their contracted and contracting opin- 
ions. 

I would have them realize how impossible it 
would have been for them to have had any New 
Testament at all had it not been for the Greek lan- 
guage, which was developed and perfected by a 
long line of Greek authors, who enriched all ages 
with their poetry, eloquence, and philosophy. 
Cicero has remarked, in his treatise on " The Na- 
ture of the Gods," that various Romans, deeply 
skilled in the Greek tongue, were unable to com- 
municate the ideas it had imparted to them in the 
Latin speech, so inadequate was the latter medium 
in the days of Julius Caesar for spiritual and meta- 
physical discussion. Nor should it be forgotten 
that the primitive statements of Christian doctrine 
and their logical coherence were due to the copious 
and flexible vocabulary of a people who had been 



3/6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

taught by Homer, Plato, Socrates, Pericles, and De- 
mosthenes. But if the Gospels and Epistles of the 
Bible could not have been penned had there been 
no Hellenic literature, how are they to be under- 
stood apart from some knowledge of that litera- 
ture, either through originals or translations? 
Helps, moreover, are constantly demanded for 
the interpretation of Holy Writ, that are derived 
from antiquarians, lexicographers, and historians ; 
and it is impossible to appreciate the significance 
and beauty of many of its passages if the light of 
contemporaneous scholarship is withdrawn. 

Even general literature of the first class, if not 
absolutely indispensable to its exposition, is of 
great service in furnishing analogies and illustra- 
tions that tend to illuminate its meaning. What- 
ever familiarizes the student with human nature, 
with its genius, its resources, its weaknesses, its 
achievements, its ambitions, its aspirations, must 
prove helpful to him as he seeks to determine the 
force of the Divine Message. Only as he per- 
ceives earthly needs can he appreciate the char- 
acter and the sufficiency of the heavenly supply ; 
and therefore, while in all respects it may not be 
well for him to imitate Foxcar's hero, he may yet 
learn a lesson of wisdom from his example, as set 
forth in the quaint verse : 

That from all books the Book of books may gain, 

He mingle-mangles sacred and profane ; 

Quotes Swift with Daniel ; Byron with Saint Peter ; 

Ezekiel with the English Opium-eater ; 

Hood with Habakkuk ; Crabbe with Zechariah ; 

Landor with Job, and Lamb w4th Jeremiah ; 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 377 

The prophet Samuel with his namesake Pepys ; 
Bunyan and Jean Paul with th' Apocalypse ; 
King Solomon with Shakespeare, Scott, Racine ; 
Esther with Edmund Spenser's " Faerie Queene" ; 
With Moses, Dryden, Dante, Doctor Donne ; 
Accomplish' d St. John with Divine Saint John. 

But if it be objected that the mind ought to 
restrict itself to the reading of the Bible in the in- 
terest of its own purity, or at least ought not to 
venture beyond religious books that tend to foster 
its instructions, I must answer that if so inclined, 
if seeking contamination, such a mind can find 
enough for its defilement even on the sacred page. 
But all such caviling proceeds on an entirely wrong 
assumption concerning the function and character 
of literature, whether inspired or uninspired. It is 
somehow taken for granted that as the Scriptures 
are from God, everything contained therein must 
be holy, and that writings not from him, however 
elevated, must have in them debasing elements. I 
am not acquainted with any wiser reply to these 
misconceptions than that which was penned by 
John Henry Newman in 1889, equally applicable 
to works sacred and profane, and which may be 
taken as a final and a sufficient reason for not dis- 
couraging and condemning the widest reading : 

Some one will say to me, perhaps our youth shall not be 
corrupted. We will dispense with all general or national 
literature whatever, if it be so exceptional ; we will have a 
Christian literature of our own, as pure, as true as the Jew- 
ish. You cannot have it. . . From the nature of the case, 
if literature is to be made a study of human nature, you 
cannot have a Christian literature. It is a contradiction in 
terms to attempt a sinless literature of sinful men. You 



3/8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

may gather together something very great and high, some- 
thing higher than any hterature ever was ; and when you 
have done so, you will find that it is not literature at all. 
You will simply have left the delineation of man, as such, 
and have substituted for it, as far as you have had anything 
to substitute, that of man, as he is or might be, under 
special advantages. Give up the study of man, as such, if 
so it must be ; but say you do so. Do not say you are 
studying him, his history, his mind, and his heart, when 
you are studying something else. Man is a being of genius, 
passion, intellect, conscience, power. He exercises his 
great gifts in various ways — in great deeds, in great thoughts, 
in heroic acts, in hateful crimes. . . Literature records them 
all to the life. ^ 

Much has been written in praise of books, both 
in poetry and prose. The oldest Hbrary of which we 
have any memorial had inscribed over the gateway 
the words, ''Medicine for the Mind" ; and without 
committing one's self for or against the no-drug 
theory of our Christian Scientists, it may be as- 
sumed that the contents of such a library are the 
true nostrums of the mind-healer's art. Lord Bacon 
summed up the value of various kinds of volumes 
in this way: ''Histories make men wise; poets, 
witty ; mathematics, subtle ; natural science, deep ; 
moral philosophy, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able 
to debate." These surely are curative virtues not 
to be despised by a race that suffers intensely from 
the maladies of foolishness, silliness, superficiality, 
frivolity, irreverence, and sophistry. 

Mrs. Barbauld says that "books are perpetual 
censors on men and manners ; they judge without 
partiality, and reprove without fear or affection." 

1 "Scope and Nature of University Education." 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 379 

As an English bishop quaintly wrote : ''These are 
the masters who instruct us without rods and ferules, 
without hard words and anger, without clothes or 
money. If you approach them they are asleep, 
... if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at 
you." Carlyle has described a collection of them 
as a real university, and Cicero has compared a 
room where there are none as a body without a 
soul. 

''Books," according to Jeremy Collier, "are a 
guide in youth and an entertainment for age. 
They support us under solitude and keep us from 
being a burden to ourselves. They help us to 
forget the crossness of men and things ; compose 
our cares and our passions ; and lay our disap- 
pointments asleep. When we are weary of the 
living, we may repair to the dead, who have noth- 
ing of peevishness, pride, or design in their con- 
versation." 

"I have friends," remarks Petrarch, "whose so- 
ciety is extremely agreeable to me ; they are of all 
ages and of every country. They have distin- 
guished themselves both in the cabinet and in the 
field, and obtained high honors for their knowledge 
of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to them, 
for they are always at my service, and I admit 
them to my company and dismiss them whenever 
I please. They are never troublesome, but imme- 
diately answer every question I ask them. Some 
relate to me the events of past ages, while others 
reveal to me the secrets of nature. Some teach 
me how to live, and others how to die. Some by 
their vivacity drive away my cares and exhilarate 



380 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

my spirits, while others give fortitude to my mind 
and teach me the important lesson how to restrain 
my desires and to depend wholly on myself." 

All round the room my silent servants wait — 
My friends in every season, bright and dim, 
Angels and seraphim 

Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low, 
And spirits of the skies all come and go 

Early and late. 

Since the invention of printing these servants 
and friends have marvelously multiplied, and un- 
happily with their increase there has been notice- 
able some deterioration of character. Appalling 
is the number of books, and still ** of making them 
there is no end." Alas ! calamitous fatality ! And 
here is another, just to fulfill the ominous prognostic, 
I suppose, of the wise king. It is computed that 
since the origin of movable types, ten million vol- 
umes have been published, and that if we allow 
three hundred to an edition, the total is three 
thousand million volumes. The greatest activity 
in this vast output has prevailed during the last 
century, which has not only given to us some of our 
most delightful authors, such as Goethe, Schiller, 
Hugo, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, 
Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Whyte Melville, 
George Meredith, and William Black, but has 
cheapened in price and brought within the reach 
of the people the masterpieces of literature. The 
books highest in character are lowest in price. As 
the fairest things in nature — the stars, the fields, 
the seas — are the most familiar, and as the most in- 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 38 1 

dispensable kinds of food are the most abundant, 
SO it has been ordered that the noblest works of 
human genius shall be the easiest to procure. 
They are everywhere. The Shakespeares, Miltons, 
Dantes, Racines, and their companions in great- 
ness, can be purchased for a trifle, or they can be 
consulted and enjoyed in libraries without cost. 

To form an idea of the multitude of books in 
the world one ought sometimes to contemplate the 
bewildering array of over a million on the shelves 
of the British Museum, or to study the publishers' 
lists, both of Europe and America, the mere perusal 
of which will indicate the enormous growth of lit- 
erature. If Milton could have foreseen this fecund- 
ity he doubtless would have modified the views he 
expressed in the **Areopagitica" concerning the 
sanctity of book life. An ingenious writer in the 
" Saturday Review " (June 22, 1878) has this de- 
licious estimate of the situation — an estimate I can- 
not abridge without spoiling. Having alluded to 
the author of "Paradise Lost," he proceeds in this 
entertaining style : 

There are, we are told, causes which operate to prevent 
our being over-peopled, but we can see nothing to save us 
from being over-booked. It was a superstition with our 
grandfathers that the butterman, the grocer, and the trunk- 
maker, helped to protect society from the inundation of 
printed matter ; but even if the idea was ever anything 
more than a poetic fable, such auxiliaries would be as un- 
availing against the tide of literature nowadays as Mrs. 
Partington' s besom against the Atlantic. Something indeed 
might be hoped from a commercial treaty with Japan ; for 
the sagacious people of that country have a way of keeping 
literature within bounds which our boasted Western inven- 



382 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

tion never thought of. In Japan there is no such thing as 
waste paper. A book that has ceased to be read, or that 
never has had readers, is not allowed by the practical Japa- 
nese to cumber the earth, take up space uselessly, or worse 
still, furnish matter for some wTiter of ' • padding ' ' articles. It 
is transmuted into some useful form — an umbrella, or hat, or 
great-coat Nay, so manifold are the applications oi papier- 
jnache in that ingenious countr}-, household furniture, and 
even houses, so travelers tell us, are made of it However large 
our annual output of literature might be, the Japanese, with 
such endless uses for paper, would no doubt be ready to 
relieve us of any quantity, and as commercial relations ex- 
tended, might perhaps return us some portions manufac- 
tured into practical shapes, just as we send cotton back to 
the growers in the form of shirting. Thus the novelist 
might come to be sheltered by his own romances, and an 
epic molded into a hat protect the head within which it was 
bom as a poem. 

From these amusing suggestions we are war- 
ranted in inferring what indeed must be apparent 
to gods and men, that this over-swollen stream — 
this inundation, so to speak — is not an unqualified 
blessing. Like Artemus Ward's seventeen Mor- 
mon widows v/ho proposed to him, it is the "much- 
ness" that discourages and depresses. It is this 
very abundance that giv^es point to Schopenhauer's 
cynical emphasis on "the paramount importance 
of acquiring the art not to read," and it is this ex- 
cess that enables us to sympathize with Atterbury 
in the doleful views he expressed to Pope in a letter 
written in 1731 : 

How many books have come out of late in your parts 
which you think I should be glad to peruse ? Name them. 

The catalogue I believe will not cost you much trouble. 
They must be good ones indeed to challenge any part of 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 383 

my time, now I have so little of it left. I who squandered 
whole days heretofore now husband hours when the glass 
begins to run low, and care not to spend them on trifles. 
At the end of the lottery of life our last minutes, like tickets 
left in the wheel, rise in their valuation. 



De Quincey likewise declared it to be "one of 
the misfortunes of life that one must read thou- 
sands of books only to discover that one need not 
have read them." This painful experience recalls 
the story of the Oriental magnate whose library 
was so vast as to require a thousand dromedaries 
to transport it. With judicious elimination of the 
useless and trashy, it was reduced to the carrying 
power of some thirty beasts of burden, and it 
might doubtless have been diminished still more. 
A similar process, if we only knew how to perform 
it, would unquestionably reduce the literature of 
the world to a limit compassable in a diligent life- 
time. The absolute necessity for discrimination is 
vigorously set forth by Ruskin in "Fors Clavigera." 

He declares that 

the chief of all the curses of this unhappy age is the gabble 
of its fools and of the flocks that follow them, rendering the 
quiet voices of the wise men of all time past inaudible. 
The first necessity for our mental government is to extricate 
from among the noise the few books and words that are di- 
vine. And this has been my main work from my youth 
up, not caring to speak my own words but to discern, 
whether in painting or sculpture, what is eternally good 
and vital, and to strike away from it pitilessly what is 
worthless and venomous. So that now, being old and 
thoroughly practised in this trade, I know either of a pic- 
ture, a book, or a speech, quite securely whether it is good 
or not, as a cheesemonger knows cheese. 



384 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

And further, in ''Sesame and Lilies," he writes : 

Life being very short and the quiet hours of it few, we 
ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books, 
and that valuable books should, in a civilized country, be 
within the reach of every one, printed in excellent form for 
a just price, but not in any vile, vulgar, or, by reason of 
smallness of type, physically injurious form at a vile price. 
For we none of us need many books, and those we need 
ought to be clearly printed on the best paper and strongly 
bound. 

Thomas Carlyle ^ also is eminently entitled to be 
heard on this point. When addressing the stu- 
dents of Edinburgh University, he said : 

I do not know whether it has been sufficiently brought 
home to you that there are two kinds of books. When a 
man is reading on any kind of a subject in most depart- 
ments of books — in all books, if you take it in a wide 
sense — you will find that there is a division of good books 
and bad books — there is a good kind of a book and a bad 
kind of a book. I am not to assume that you are all ill 
acquainted with this, but I may remind you that it is a very 
important consideration at present. It casts aside alto- 
gether the idea that people have that if they are reading any 
book, that if an ignorant man is reading any book, he is 
doing rather better than nothing at all. I entirely call that 
in question. I even venture to deny it. It would be much 
safer and better would he have no concern with books at all 
than with some of them. 

I have no doubt that 'these reflections are sound 
and entirely worthy of consideration, and that, in 
view of them, it must be the duty of pastors, who 
presumably are students, to assist their people — 

1 "On the Choice of Books." 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 385 

especially those of youthful years — to a wise selec- 
tion of the best and purest in literature. In some 
measurable degree I am seeking to meet this obli- 
gation in this Message ; and while I know others are 
better qualified for the pleasant task I must, to be 
clear in my own conscience, attempt its perform- 
ance to the best of my ability. 

A leading educator several years ago remarked 
in my hearing that poetry and philosophy were 
more closely allied than many persons supposed 
and that he was persuaded the study of the former 
was more necessary, not to say more advantageous, 
than the study of the latter. Since then I have 
thought considerably on the subject, and I am con- 
vinced that we gain a clearer insight into the causes 
and motives of human action, and a truer knowl- 
edge of the soul and its workings from the muses 
than from the metaphysicians. Probably this will 
be considered heresy by the admirers of the objec- 
tive and subjective, the conditional and uncondi- 
tional, the absolute and the relative. But is it not 
apparent that Homer and Hesiod, supplemented 
by Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, must 
give us a more comprehensive idea of Greek society 
and of the peculiarities and susceptibilities of Greek 
genius than can be derived from the "Dialogues" 
of Plato? The '' Nibelungenlied,'' '' Morte d' Ar- 
thur,'' **The Canterbury Tales," and similar classics, 
can hardly fail to disclose the profoundest princi- 
ples that govern the actions of individuals and na- 
tions. They not only reproduce the times, or the 
legends of the times, of which they wrote, but they 
show the innermost depths of the nature common 

z 



386 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

to the race in all a^es. We certainly learn more 
of man from Goethe than from Kant, more from 
IMoliere than Descartes, more from Bums than 
Dugald Stewart and immeasurably more from 
Shakespeare than from Locke, Berkeley, and Lewes. 

A Scotch blacksmith thus describes "metaphys- 
ics" : "Twa folk disputin" thegither; he that's 
listenin' disna ken what he that's speakin' means, 
and he that's speakin' disna ken what he means 
himsel'." 

This of course is hardly a fair representation ; 
but at least it shows that in popular esteem philoso- 
phy is not alwa}'s the most effective teacher, even 
of itself I do not say this to create the impression 
that there is any real rivalry- between philosophy 
and poetr\- — far from it. They are allies, not 
enemies, and their mission is co-ordinate, not an- 
tagonistic; and it is the peculiar merit of Robert 
Browning that, in his works we behold the two in 
actual fellowship. The great charm of this won- 
derful author is that, without advertising his inten- 
tion he enshrines philosophy in poetr\-, and offers 
poetr}' as a precious sacrifice on the altar of philoso- 
phy. As he has united them in his productions 
we oucrht not to divorce them in our readinor. 
Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Edmund Spenser, Drj-den, 
Tennyson, Longfellow, Br}-ant, Schiller, and Racine, 
in addition to poets already named, ought to keep 
company with Socrates, Aristotle, Spinoza, Cousin, 
Hamilton, Hegel, Fichte, Coleridge, and Emerson. 
This is a goodly fellowship and, like all other true 
fellowships, mutually helpful. 

Probably it will be suggested that both classes of 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 387 

writers are beyond the level of ordinary readers 
and that it were better to recommend more ele- 
mentary works. M. Jules Simon, the eminent 
Frenchman, when conferring the prizes of the Phi- 
lotechnic Society, had to meet this objection; and 
he did so in a very satisfactory manner. I give a 
brief extract from his speech : 

You are learning to read poetry ; the simpler it is the finer, 
and a fine poem will always make an impression on the 
public. You can see a demonstration of this in the fi"ee 
performances which are given once a year at the Paris thea- 
• tre. I was once asked to select the programme. It was 
desired to give plays which might be accessible to the intel- 
lect of those who have not advanced in education. What 
is the best thing with which to entertain the masses ? Take 
what is greatest in literature, and you will find that the 
greatest conceptions of the world' s best minds will scarcely 
be great enough for this universal public. If you take three 
or four persons singly and give them Corneille and Racine, 
they may possibly not understand. But the people — the 
masses — will always understand. It is the difference be- 
tween man and mankind. The greatest effort that man can 
make is to represent humanity. 

I agree entirely with him. Observation running 
through many years has taught me that it will not 
do to presume on the ignorance of the public. The 
multitudes whom the cultured view as of ordinary 
intelligence are those who cannot be satisfied with 
shallowness and mediocrity. Consequently I rec- 
ommend only the highest, the loftiest, the best in 
literature ; for that which is the grandest and noblest 
will be more profoundly in harmony with human 
nature, and what is most in accord with human 
nature, that nature will, even when comparatively 



388 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

untaught, be able to comprehend most readily. 
Nor can this fellowship with the highest be over- 
valued. It means a great deal, not only to readers 
themselves, but to the cause of literature itself, 
creating as it does a taste for what is refined and 
eminently spiritual. Witness the dawn of hope in 
France, that at last the old school of naturalism 
appears to be on the wane. Tolstoi's dictum that 
"soul is a necessity," both in man and in the uni- 
verse of things, is coming to be understood among 
men of letters in Paris, and is causing unusual sen- 
sations of joy; for it is being apprehended that the 
correction of public taste will bring with it a purer 
literature. Levisse Faquet, and especially Desjar- 
dins, are prominently representative of this move- 
ment, concerning which Madame de Berry writes in 
the "Contemporary" : "The tendency tow^ard the 
spiritualization of thought in France is rapidly be- 
coming universal ; her men of action, in common 
with the men of thought, are hailing with enthusi- 
asm the union of labor with science, of science 
with imagination, and of all with each in the true 
and hearty love of 'humanity.' " 

Delille also, in the "Nineteenth Century," is 
equally confident. He says : " Psychologists, sym- 
bolists, occultists, though widely divided on other 
points, are all united in proclaiming the downfall 
of naturalism." The revolt against materialism 
seems to be pronounced, and with it a reaction 
from the dominance of base ideals and erotic fan- 
tasies. To prevent the possibility of the coming 
generation lapsing into the quagmire from which 
Frenchmen are seeking to deliver themselves, 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 389 

teachers of youth must persistently maintain the 
prior claims the master minds have on the atten- 
tion of mankind. 

And it would be well if, in this connection, the 
real merit of Thomas Carlyle were clearly stated, 
and at least a few of his books commended to the 
thoughtful student. What the ''Christian Com- 
monwealth" has set forth regarding his genius and 
work cannot be too frequently repeated : 

It was moral, not physical, force he really worshiped. 
He held that "the set of the universe is just," that good 
will prevail over evil. And his teaching, so different to 
that of his day, has certainly helped to mold English 
thought. In this his humor was an important agent. 
The two greatest curses of England, he said, were ' ' drink 
and stump oratory." With much that is exaggerated and 
unwise in his writings, they will ever, as Mr. Lecky says, 
be distinguished from almost all others by the stress they 
lay on the fact that ''the moral element'' is the deepest 
and most important part of our being, deeper and stronger 
than all intellectual conditions. 

Therefore, as an educator of the taste, Carlyle 
will always prove invaluable. I am not here re- 
ferring to style. Macaulay and Ruskin outrank 
him in all that pertains to the grace of composi- 
tion ; but in the cultivation of the taste for all that 
is genuine, sincere, and thoroughly honest in the 
realm of letters, he is, in my opinion, unmatched. 
Contact with his thought seems to arouse a new 
love for truth, and the grandeur of his own vera- 
ciousness renders every form of deceitfulness, even 
the most alluring, unutterably despicable. The 
whole trend of his influence is against the super- 



390 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

ficial, the mediocre, and the pernicious in books ; 
and the uniformit}- and \'igor of his testimony on 
this subject are such as to indicate the \-ast import- 
ance of vouncr readers beinsr encouraged to seek 
acquaintance with the highest and the noblest 

It is well known that not a few serious persons 
entertain the most uncompromising antipathy 
toward works of fiction. Romances, novels, and 
the hke, to them, are httle short of " the abomina- 
nation that maketh desolate." The\- are unwilling 
to tolerate any such productions beneath their 
roofs, and if they have children, they are solemnly 
warned not even to be on speaking terms vriih 
"The Seven Champions of Christendom," "The 
Scottish Chiefs,'' "Thaddeus of Warsaw,'* or 
"Robinson Crusoe." Such creations of unsancti- 
fied imagination are not to be admitted for a 
moment into respectable societ}-, especially into 
company that professes to be godly. And yet, 
with significant invariableness, as these innocent 
offenders are debarred from entering at the front 
door, childish hands surreptitiously let do\^Ti the 
chain and welcome them at the back gate. 

'Boys and girls, as a rule, do not read fewer sto- 
ries because of parental prohibition, but they come 
to pay too dear a price for Hbert\- they exercise 
without permission — ^they sacrifice their ingenuous- 
ness. Moreover, indiscriminate condemnation not 
merely fosters deceitfulness, but frequendy leads to 
another appaUing possibiHt\\ Left to themselves 
and their wa\-ward appetites, children are as likely 
to acquire the habit of reading trashy, corrupting, 
and infamous romances as thev are to form a taste 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 39 1 

for those that are good and elevating ; perhaps 
more so. Such books are an unmitigated curse 
and ought to be suppressed. They have created 
criminals, have saturated the mind with unpurgible 
filthiness, and have led to unspeakable orgies and 
vices. Penitentiaries and insane asylums witness 
to the fatal power of these devilish agencies, pub- 
lished in flaring colors, with flashy titles, and for 
trifling charges. They are at times displayed with 
painted candies in small stores, and make up part 
of the poisoned commodities retailed to the unsus- 
pecting. Teachers occasionally find them secreted 
in desks at school ; and parents, after the lapse of 
years, will often discover them carefully hidden in 
lumber closets or behind heavy articles of furniture 
— the tardy explanation of willfulness, wayward- 
ness, and downright wickedness. To avert so seri- 
ous a calamity, it is far better for the guardians of 
youth to tolerate, if nothing more, the stories of 
Goldsmith, Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Count 
Tolstoi — some of them — Victor Hugo, Charles 
Dickens, George Eliot, Charles Kingsley, Thacke- 
ray, Walter Scott, and others of similar excellence. 
By such wholesome food, the taste for carrion may 
happily be aborted. 

It may be, however, that some scrupulously con- 
scientious people will object that they ought not to 
do even modified evil that a greater evil may be 
prevented ; for it is not to be denied that in some 
instances the opposition lies directly against fiction 
as fiction, whatever may be its character. I am 
not sure that any words of mine would influence 
these inveterate conservatives ; but in the interest 



392 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

of the young who may peruse these pages, their 
misconception ought to be exposed and the weak- 
ness of their position made apparent. Evidently 
these haters of novel reading assume that all fiction 
is necessarily false. That is the meaning they at- 
tach to the word, and they do not take pains to 
ascertain whether they are correct in their interpre- 
tation or not Well, the truth of the matter is that 
the word "fiction" is derived from the Latin verb 
fingOy and primarily signifies "to touch," "to han- 
dle," and so "to frame or to fashion." It is not 
denied that, in the secondary sense, the word de- 
notes what is imagined or feigned ; but it does not 
invariably or necessarily suggest that which is un- 
real, or unnatural, or untrue. And this leads me 
to a very important question, and opens a fresh de- 
partment of our general subject. 

The friends who strenuously denounce novels 
are usually equally strenuous in advocating historical 
studies. But is history always veracious ? If fiction 
should not be read because it contains more imagi- 
nation than fact, is it possible consistently to defend 
the reading of history? And if it is, whose his- 
tory is thus entitled to our confidence ? Shall we 
follow Froude, or his uncompromising critic. Free- 
man? Hume, it is said, wrote for the Whigs and 
the skeptics, and Macaulay for the present era ; and 
it is asserted by candid reviewers that both were 
unable to escape from their bias and prejudice. 
Green's " History of the English People," is a nota- 
ble volume ; but how can we believe what he has 
written, if such an author as Dr. Lingard, who was 
quite an authority forty years ago, is to be cred- 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 393 

ited ? Take an account of the Reformation penned 
by a Romanist, and another account by a Protest- 
ant, and one would hardly suppose that the same 
period and the same events were described by 
these writers. When the court of Queen Mary is 
set forth as a model for any Christian princess, 
while that of Elizabeth is portrayed as a den of 
wickedness ; and when Milton is referred to as a 
bad man, and Benjamin Franklin as " a great insti- 
gator of rebellion," is the book that contains these 
misrepresentations to be considered as more 
entitled to our attention and less pernicious than 
Swift's ''Gulliver's Travels"?^ I have no desire 
to destroy the respect of my young friends for his- 
torians ; but, in justice to them, I must impress on 
their minds the fact that all so-called history is not 
true, and all fiction is not false. Wherever human- 
ity is reproduced as it really is, and wherever its 
aims, motives, laws are disclosed in action, though 
the framework, scheme, or plot may be imaginary, 
the heart and substance of the book are true. 
^^ Les Miserables'' and '* Ninety- three," by Victor 
Hugo, and ''Westward Ho!" and " Hypatia," by 
Kingsley, are more essentially veracious than 
Dickens' " History of England," or even Michelet's 
"History of France," excellent and inspiring as 
the latter volume undoubtedly is. 

Sir Philip Sidney admirably expresses the pur- 
pose and value of that class of literature which has 
been dealt with so unreasonably by extreme relig- 
ionists : 

iSee Rev. J. M. Neale's "History for Children." 



394 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

The dealer in fiction cometh unto you with a tale which 
holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney 
corner ; and pretending no more doth intend the winning 
of the mind from wickedness to virtue, even as the child 
is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding 
them in such as have a pleasant taste ; which, if one tell 
them the nature of the aloes and the ?-/mbarbarum they 
should receive, they would sooner take their physic at their 
ears than at their mouths. 

This is a fair statement of the case. 

The highest fiction — that which deserves to be 
read — is merely an attractive and sufficient medium 
for the transmission of truth, just as the subtle 
ether is affirmed by certain scientists to be the 
medium for the transmission of fight from the sun 
to our globe. As such, it is not to be condemned 
in wholesale fashion, neither ought it to be with- 
held from those who can be directly benefited by 
its manifold charms. 

From what has been said, it will doubtless have 
been inferred that histor}^ and fiction are not much 
farther apart than philosophy and poetry. While, 
in a sense, they certainly are not entire strangers 
to each other, history, with all of its faults, out- 
ranks fiction, and is worthy of the most ardent 
endeavors to master its content. No man's educa- 
tion is complete without the careful reading of 
Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Tacitus, Grote's 
''Greece," Gibbon's ''Rome," Guizot's ''France," 
Bancroft's "United States," and the other volumes 
already mentioned in this connection. Nor ought 
such books as Schlegel's "Philosophy of History," 
and Hegel's work under the same title, to be 
neglected by any person who desires to understand 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 395 

the principles underlying what Carlyle terms *' the 
record of remarkable actions." It is not probable 
that discussions so profound as those last named 
will have any special attractions for beginners. I 
have referred to them rather as a kind of climax to 
such studies than as an introduction. Indeed, my 
own opinion is that it is better, so to speak, for the 
youth to wade from the present up the stream of 
time to its source, instead of beginning his labors 
at the alleged fountain head in the garden of Eden. 
Let him, first of all, read the history of his own 
countiy, say for a hundred years, and then read 
that of contemporaneous nations during the same 
period. Then let him inquire. How came this age 
to be as it is ? The question will carry him back 
to the preceding century for its answer ; and so on, 
seeking in scientific fashion for an explanation of 
every epoch and era, until he reaches the dawn of 
history. His philosophy will likely grow with his 
knowledge, and in the end he may come to realize 
with Froude that ** the world is somehow built on 
moral foundations ; that in the long run it is well 
with the good, in the long run it is ill with the 
wicked." 

I desire likewise to recommend, "The History 
of America," by Justin Winsor, and by the same 
author also, ** Christopher Columbus"; **The 
Discovery of America," by John Fiske ; and ''The 
Constitutional and Political History of the United 
States," by Dr. H. Von Hoist. 

An important means of comprehending the sig- 
nificance of the annals of the race is supplied by 
biography. I have now for many years associated 



396 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

each division of histon^ with the life of some prom- 
inent personage, and have grouped around him all 
the facts I could gather ; and in this way the men- 
tion of his name recalls all that I know of his times 
and environment. Dates, I find, are more easily 
remembered by connecting them with the career 
of a famous leader than by any other process famil- 
iar to me. What varied panoramas of events, for 
instance, follow the mere introduction of the illus- 
trious individuals w^hom Taine brins^s tog^ether in a 
single paragraph, though they were separated from 
each other bv manv vears and bv differing circum- 
stances ! 

"Augustus," he says, " divided the world with Lepidus 
and Anthony, then killed Anthony to have it all his own. 
Charlemagne placed his brother Carloman in a cloister, and 
to destroy Witikind cut off the head of all Saxons longer 
than his sword. Louis XI. revolted against his father to 
dethrone him, and made Charles VII. so dread poison that 
he died of starvation. Richelieu formed plots and had them 
executed at the block in the Place de Greve. Mazarin 
signed a treat)- with the Protector and drove Charles II. fi-om 
France. These are noted rulers, and yet betrayers of the 
right" 

Each of these great chieftains suggests at once 
the civilizations, movements, conspiracies, and con- 
flicts with which he was related, and the restoration 
of his features in some degree necessitates the re- 
construction of his age. 

But independent of its value as a key to histor)^, 
biography has a worth all its own as an exposition 
of human nature and as an inspiration to the high- 
est achievements. Who can forget the impression 
made on his mind bv the reading of Plutarch's 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 39/ 

*' Lives," a book of the largest information and of 
the most stimulating qualities ? It not only deals 
with ancient heroes, but it has made heroes. I 
have no doubt that other volumes of a similar kind 
have been the real parents of many of the noblest 
characters that have appeared on the stage of time. 
It is impossible to compute the influence of Car- 
lyle's ** Oliver Cromwell," or even Boswell's ''John- 
son," a very different book indeed and with a very 
different hero. Such works place us on terms of 
fellowship with giant minds and gentle hearts, and 
at once humble and exalt us. They humble by 
making sadly apparent our own deficiencies, and 
they exalt by reminding us that we belong to the 
race which is continually producing men of glori- 
ous genius. 

Froude laments that, with the decline of the Ro- 
man Catholic Church, worthy biographies are be- 
coming rare and may become impossible. This he 
attributes to the change in the world's ruling ideal, 
self-sacrifice being supplanted by a spirit altogether 
too mercenary for successful biography. I dissent 
fundamentally from his views. The " Lives of the 
Saints" — to which he alludes in illustration of what 
he deplores — is, in my opinion, too fanciful, too 
artificial and absurd in its portraitures for it to be 
of any real value. Its veiy unnaturalness rules it 
out, to a great degree, from the sphere of practical 
utility. I would as soon recommend the life of 
Aladdin or of Sinbad the Sailor as a model of biog- 
raphy, as I would that of St. Patrick or of St. 
Bridget, as revised and edited and authorized by 
an infallible church. To show that Mr. Froude is 



I 



398 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

not justified in his grief, I may be allowed to men- 
tion Kostlin's '* Luther," Lockhart's " Walter Scott," 
Mrs. Oliphant's " Edward Irving," and various 
stimulating volumes on Livingstone, Carey, and 
Judson, not forgetting several autobiographies like 
those from the pen of Goethe, Hugh Miller, and 
General Grant. These and similar books are a re- 
buke to the mediaevalism of Mr. Froude, and their 
perusal must convince that all ages, and ours none 
the less than others, are about equally prolific in 
men of varying types of personal greatness. 

Essays and lectures are to be particularly prized 
when they contribute to this impression. While I 
esteem articles on various other subjects, I cannot 
but feel a peculiar interest in those which are de- 
voted to celebrated characters. In my judgment, 
they must always possess an overmastering charm 
for youthful readers. Take as samples Carlyle's 
''Heroes and Hero Worship," also his essays on 
Goethe, Novalis, Richter, and Burns ; likewise what 
Macaulay has written on Milton and Bunyan, and 
what James Sterling has penned on Douglas Jer- 
rold, Tennyson, and Elliott, and Edmond Scherer 
on John Stuart Mill, Laurence Sterne, and Words- 
worth. These papers are comparatively brief, and 
bring us at once into touch with the genius of their 
subjects and into sympathy with them in their 
vicissitudes. We become familiar with their moods, 
their ambitions, and disappointments ; and in the 
eloquent words of an obscure author, we hear them 
as " they beat up the thunder from the hard high- 
way," and we listen to their "melodies which drop 
down into the soul like the tears of music." 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 399 

Of Ebenezer Elliott, it was written by Searle : 
** He would utter the finest things one after another 
with the throat of ^Etna, scattering them about in 
blasts of fire and thunder. He was a sort of walk- 
ing earthquake, clad in flowers and rainbows ; one 
of the most beautiful and terrible of men." By 
the aid of biography we recognize our brother- 
hood with such serene and tempestuous characters, 
and storm with them, and smile with them, and 
learn from them innumerable lessons of persever- 
ance and patience ; and at last, when tired and 
worn as they were with the conflict, still inspired 
by their example, we come softly to sing : 

Brothers, I have done my best ; 
I am weary, let me rest, 
Let me rest, but lay me low, 
Where the hedgeside roses blow ; 
Where the winds a-Maying go, 
Where the little daisies grow. 

It is usually supposed that religion and science 
have so little in common that books on these re- 
spective themes must be rather antagonistic than 
supplemental to each other. Such, however, is not 
necessarily the case. There are volumes on relig- 
ious subjects that are eminently scientific in method 
and treatment, and there are volumes on science 
that are surprisingly religious in spirit and rever- 
ence. Messengers, these, that seem to call us 

To that cathedral boundless as our wonder. 
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply ; 
Its choir the winds waves and, its organ thunder, 
Its dome the sky. 



400 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

As a matter of fact, are not the two domains 
very intimately allied — almost as closely, indeed, 
as the water and the atmosphere in nature? "The 
heavens declare the glory of God and the firma- 
ment showeth his handiwork . . . and the law of 
the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." He has 
embodied his thought in the splendid symbolism 
of the stars, and in the hieroglyphics of the rocks 
and hills, as well as in letters, words, and sentences. 

The inquirer must ever fall short of anything 
Hke adequate knowledge of God, who is neglectful 
of either divinely appointed repository of truth ; 
and the literature that assists him to penetrate 
both must be equally welcome and must be equally 
entitled to consideration. 

It is hardly necessary to say that there are vol- 
umes devoted to the exposition of the physical 
universe, whose violent opposition to Christianity 
constitutes a most fatal defect. Such books are 
scientific in their treatment of everything except 
religion. They deal with that as though it were 
an idle fabrication, or, at best, as an overgrown 
child that has reached the proportions of a giant 
with only the intellect of a simpleton. It is not 
necessary that I mention the titles of these one- 
sided treatises. They are pretty thoroughly adver- 
tised, and I prefer not to give them further public- 
ity. But it is perhaps fair that I should say that I 
do not include in the list Darwin or Tyndall ; for 
while there is on the part of neither an acceptance 
of Christian truths, and particularly on the part of 
the latter at times something like mocking hostility, 
they are both so manifestly honest, so thoughtful 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 4OI 

and eloquent, that, in spite of specific denials, they 
carry us into a region higher and subHmer than 
that of mere physics. Especially those passages 
in the '* Origin of Species" where the great evolu- 
tionist concedes that his theory does not supersede 
the necessity for the Divine Being to give the 
primal forms or form whence this varied universe 
has sprung, and those in ''Scientific Materialism" 
that confess " the passage from the physics of the 
brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness" 
to be ** unthinkable," and that declare " molecular 
groupings and molecular motions " to be very far 
from explaining anything — both ip letter and spirit 
tend to reverence, awe, and devoutness in the mind 
of the reader. 

Mr. George Lewes, in "The Fortnightly," com- 
plained that there were men of culture who regard 
science with a vague dread which expresses itself 
in a dislike, sometimes sharpened into hatred. 
There is no accounting at times for prejudices. It 
is reported of Arnold, of Rugby, that he could not 
endure Livy, and that, having accidentally visited 
the birthplace of the Roman, he congratulated 
hirQself on his escape from an atmosphere which 
he had breathed. Christian people are not always 
above such singular aversions. But they ought to 
be overcome. They are fruitful of no blessings. 
There is good in everything. Even in the Indian 
jungle rare and delicate plants are found. Much 
more is this true of science. It is prolific in bene- 
fits, even though there may be much of the swamp 
and the miasma about it. Let the religious Demos- 
thenes warn the church, if he must, against the 

2A 



402 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

encroachments of this stern Philip ; but let him 
deal more fairly by Philip than the Athenians did. 
The world is large enough ; there is room enough 
for both, and they can be sufficiently helpful to 
each other for them to be mutually respectful and 
sympathetic. It is related of one Leo, of Byzan- 
tium, that when at Athens he said to the people, 
though his wife w^as a small woman, the city where 
they lived was not big enough to contain the two. 
Alas for Leo ! Alas for Mrs. Leo ! Thus the 
advocates of science sometimes sneer at religion, 
disparaging its moral magnitude ; and they, in their 
turn, are treated in a similar way by the devotees 
of faith. Byzantium, consequently, is straitened to 
contain them. But it will be otherwise if they will 
only learn justice, candor, and charity. Then they 
will revere each other, and, though differing, will 
appreciate each other's labors in behalf of human 
advancement. 

But if some scientific works are unfavorable to 
religion, there are some religious books, or at least 
books so called, that are equally disastrous to the 
cause they aim to interpret and defend, Christian- 
ity may well pray to be delivered from some of its 
professed friends in type. Trashy sentimentalism, 
unnatural precocious piety, superstitious scrupu- 
lousness, ascetic and withal superficial casuistry, 
combined with gross, carnal, and almost melodra- 
matic conceptions of redemption, make up very 
unwholesome pabulum on which to nourish the 
spiritual life. 

An extreme example of this style of literature 
is furnished in an old work especially designed for 




ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 403 

children, entitled " Virtue and Vice ; or, The His- 
tory of Charles Careful and Harry Heedless." 
The learned author designs his heroes to act re- 
spectively as illustrations of the proverbial good 
and bad boys. Of course, the former youth 
always sought advice ; imitated his seniors ; never 
climbed trees, nor fell in ditches, nor hunted birds' 
nests ; never made mud pies ; never hallooed on 
the streets ; never coasted down a hill ; and loved 
sermons, gave his pocket money to beggars, and 
occasioned no one any solicitude or anxiety — an 
angelic, though wingless lad. Naturally he be- 
came very rich, and rode in his own carriage. They 
always do — these denizens of paradise. Why not? 

Is it necessary to say that Master Heedless was 
just the opposite of this paragon ? He was un- 
tamably and incorrigibly wicked. He did climb 
trees, tear his garments, fall in muddy ditches, run 
away from school, and act in a wildly tempestuous 
manner ; and properly enough lost his money and 
had to be saved from penury by the hand of 
Charles Careful. Both characters, as they are por- 
trayed, seem to me equally preposterous and im- 
possible, and the moral of the story vicious and 
misleading ; for it merely extols the huckstering 
virtues that are akin to vices, and once more con- 
verts the temple of God into a den of thieves. 

Other specimens of this precious literature I 
could easily give, but am deterred by the fact that 
their contents cannot be described without appear- 
ing to border on the profane. But as I recall what 
my vocation has unhappily compelled me to exam- 
ine, with John Stuart Mill I regard such volumes 



404 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

as a poor substitute for old romances, whether of 
chivalry or fairy, which, if not veritable pictures of 
actual life, were not false ones, but far better, since 
they filled the youthful imagination with ideals of 
heroic men and heroic women. 

No one can afford to waste time on publications 
issued in the name of Christ, if they are of doubt- 
ful value. If he is to be spiritually benefited, he 
must seek the best ; and I am grateful to say that 
the list of the best is too long for it to be given here. 
All I can do is to call attention to some works with- 
out which a religious library is incomplete — not to 
furnish a catalogue comprehensive and exhaustive. 
Among the most important, I place Butler's **Anal- 
ogy of Religion," Bushnell's ** Nature and the Su- 
pernatural," Drummond's ''Natural Law in the 
Spiritual World," Rogers' ''Superhuman Origin of 
the Bible," Geikie's "Hours with the Bible," Bun- 
yan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Taylor's "Holy Liv- 
ing and Dying," Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation 
of Christ," Luther's "Table Talk," Pascal's '^Pen- 
sees,'' Pusey's "Augustine," Wake's "Apostolic 
Fathers," Epictetus' ''Enchiridion,'' Aristotle's 
"Ethics," Keble's "Christian Year," Heine's "Re- 
ligion and Philosophy in Germany," James Free- 
man Clarke's "Ten Great Religions," Arnold's 
" Light of Asia" and " Light of the World," Wil- 
kinson's "Epic of Saul," Vaughan's "Mystics," 
and last, though not least, Ruskin's "Lives of the 
Painters." ^ 

Concerning the last it may be said that it is not 

^ Add to the above '* The Argument for Christianity," Lorimer. 
[Ed.] 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 405 

a work on religion and should not be classed with 
books of that character. I know well enough its 
scope, and have classed it as I have, because of the 
devout and thoroughly religious temper by which 
it is distinguished. Mr. Ruskin has been termed 
*'the homilist of art" ; and of him it has been de- 
clared that he "preaches a sermon on every page 
and preaches without knowing it." Likewise, "it 
is asserted that Henry Ward Beecher saturated his 
mind with Mr. Ruskin's writings ; and that the 
mixture of classical erudition with positive adoration 
of the Bible gives to his art of criticism a sublimity 
which is altogether unapproached by others." One, 
therefore, who masters his marvelous productions 
will find himself not only enriched in the knowledge 
of art, but in spiritual experiences as well. 

As it is of the gravest moment, life being as 
short as it is, that only religious classics should be 
read, it is also important that second-rate works on 
science should be avoided. Technical books I do 
not refer to in this department, as I have not 
spoken of them in any other, and as I am not 
recommending text-books, but only those suitable 
for general, though accurate, information. Among 
them I name some of those I am myself familiar 
with, such as Humboldt's "Cosmos" and "Travels," 
Bacon's ''Novum Organum,'' Wallace's "Natural 
Selection," Mivart's "Lessons from Nature," Gray's 
"Natural Science and Religion," Hugh Miller's 
"Testimony of the Rocks," Winchell's "Sketches 
of Creation," Youman's "Correlation and Conser- 
vation of Forces," and the various volumes from 
the pens of Darwin and Haeckel. 



406 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Up to the present, I have narrowed the appli- 
cation of the term ''science." I have restricted it 
thus far exclusively to the interpretations of nature 
and of natural laws ; but it embraces a wider range. 
There is a science of society as well as of the uni- 
verse, and as exact in its principles as any other, 
were our induction of facts comprehensive enough 
for us to determine their real bearing and signifi- 
cance. Moreover, in this special field of inquiry, 
it is not easy to say where sociology ends and the- 
ology begins ; and indeed, it is growing more and 
more difficult to permanently divorce them from 
each other. They are mutual helps. 

The business of religion is to perfect society ; 
and the business of sociology, practically if not 
theoretically, is to furnish the best conditions for 
the advancement of religion. Poverty, distress, 
outrage, oppression, and chronic wretchedness and 
despair have always impeded the progress of 
Christianity; and apart from Christianity, these 
evils are stubborn and ineradicable. Of late more 
attention has been given in communities to the 
amelioration of humanity than ever in the past, and 
leaders are beginning to believe what Epictetus 
said to his own age in the dusty past : **You will 
do the greatest service to the State if you shall 
raise, not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of 
the citizens : for it is better that great souls should 
dwell in small houses rather than for mean slaves 
to lurk in great houses." 

Unless I greatly mistake the signs of the times, 
we are on the eve of a social revolution, and the 
men of to-morrow will undoubtedly determine its 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 40/ 

scope and its spirit. How imperative, then, is it 
that the youth of to-day should not be ignorant of 
what is being said or written about existing evils 
and the proposed organization of industry ! Most 
earnestly do I commend Herbert Spencer's "Study 
in Sociology" and "Man versus the State," Mill's 
"Principles of Political Economy," Rogers' "Eco- 
nomic Interpretation of History," Mallock's "In- 
equalities of Society," Henry George's " Progress 
and Poverty," Bellamy's " Looking Backward," 
Bryce's "American Commonwealth," Thomas H. 
Benton's "Thirty Years in United States Senate," 
James G. Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress," 
George Jacob Holyoake's " Co-operation," and the 
" Fabian Essays." These are only a few of the 
books now pouring forth like a cataract on the 
world that reveal something of the drift and dan- 
gers of the present hour, and that directly or in- 
directly disclose the functions and limitations of 
government, and suggest plans for the permanent 
improvement and betterment of society ; and these 
should be carefully perused and a thorough ac- 
quaintance with the problems and the legislation 
of our times be earnestly sought The present 
spasm of anarchy in Europe, which is causing so 
much anxiety, cannot in the nature of things effect 
any beneficial changes. Not dynamite, but intelli- 
gence, is the hope of the world ; not brutality, but 
reason, shall determine the reforms of the future. 
Books are more potent than bullets in righting 
wrongs and slaying oppressions. Only as they are 
understood, and only as they create a large view 
of humanity and its needs, and only as they shall 



408 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

inspire in the direction of peaceful and practical 
endeavors, will the new generation thrill to the 
voice of the poet as he calls : 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 
The faithless coldness of the times ; 

Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 
Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Lord Brougham is reported to have said that "it 
is well to read everything of something, and some- 
thing of everything." But to do this the taste 
must be cultivated, and the inestimable worth of 
literature must be duly appreciated. Dick Steele 
wrote in the "Tatler," 147: ''Reading should be 
to the mind what exercise is to the body, bringing 
pleasure with health and strength." The pleasure 
is an important element. If we have not so cor- 
rected our crude desires as to find more delight in 
good and instructive volumes than in the lust of 
the eye and the pride of life, we shall profit but 
little by the wisdom either of ancients or moderns. 
Macaulay is reported to have found more enjoy- 
ment in the company of Sterne, Fielding, Horace 
Walpole, and Boswell, than in the society of the 
greatest living wits of his day. Gibbon has been 
heard to say that he would not exchange his love 
of reading for all the treasures of India ; and Sir 
John Hershel placed on record these stirring senti- 
ments on the same subject : 

If I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in 
stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source 
of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a 
shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 4O9 

world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I 
speak of it of course only as a worldly advantage, and not 
in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating from 
the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious 
principles, but as a taste, an instrument, and a mode of 
pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste and the 
means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a 
happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most 
perverse selection of books. 

To realize the desire of the famous astronomer, 
and to so discipline and refine the mind that it 
shall readily discern what is worthy in the world of 
letters, it is important that due attention be given 
to works more or less expository and critical in 
their scope. Familiarity with the history of liter- 
ature ; a knowledge of the rank attained by partic- 
ular men of genius ; an idea of the estimate in 
which they are held by cultured and competent 
judges ; and some conception of what passages in 
their writings are generally admitted to be gems 
and masterpieces — are elements of an education 
incomparably valuable and dignified. Helps in 
this direction are numerous, and I refer only to a 
few of those that have been of service to me in my 
intellectual life, especially during my later years, 
and which cannot be studied without distinct 
advantage on the part of all who desire to acquire 
the ability of intelligently discriminating in the 
choice of books. I am personally indebted to 
Sismondi's ''Literature of Europe," to Schle- 
gel's ''Esthetics," Schiller's ''Essays," Fenton's 
"Greece," Taine's "English Literature," and to 
Van Laun's "French Literature." Likewise I 
have read with profit " Literary Workers," by Har- 



4IO MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

greaves, ''The Story of some Famous Books," by 
Saunders, "The Pleasures of Literature " — EngHsh 
volume, but author's name forgotten, a clerical 
book-borrower, who preaches *'Thou shalt not 
steal" having failed to return it — ah me! "On 
Shakespeare," by Gervinus, "Origin and Philoso- 
phy of Language," by John Walsh, and an "Eng- 
lish Literature" by the same pen. These produc- 
tions, thoughtfully perused, can hardly fail to 
develop a taste for what is best in prose and 
poetry. And if further assistance be craved, I 
refer the inquirer to the bibliography contained in 
Sir John Lubbock's "Pleasures of Life" — a use- 
ful, though only a sketchy, book ; and to the 
bibliography published in "A Club of One" by A. 
P. Russell — a witty and clever production in every 
way, and one that has furnished several of the 
references incorporated in the present treatise. 
Even the mere names of the authors cited in these 
lists and catalogues are of value to the student, as 
revealing to him who the master minds are at 
whose feet he is to sit, and from whose lips he is to 
learn wisdom. They indicate at least what he 
should admire and what he should shun ; and with 
the aid of such helps, drilled in the appreciation 
of true genius, he may hope to be capable of en- 
joying the grandest and worthiest achievements of 
the mind. This, however, is not the work of a 
day or of a mere nodding acquaintance with lead- 
ing writers. 

But assuming that, in some slight degree, this 
taste has been created, there arises the very prac- 
tical question, — not easily answered either, — How 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 4I I 

shall it be satisfied and yet grow on what it feeds ? 
In other words, How shall we read ? What method 
is the best? What rules are most entitled to our 
confidence ? Goethe says that for eighteen years 
he had tried to define and acquire this art and had 
not been remarkably successful. And Richter, in 
similar perplexity, inquires, ''Does more depend 
on the order in which the meats follow each other 
or on the digestion of them?" Who can tell? 
Even in the assimilation of food, ice-cream logi- 
cally seems to follow soup and meats, and, if taken 
at too early a stage in the proceedings, might 
interfere with the enjoyment of the repast as well 
as seriously disturb the functions of nature. 

Authoritative directions are manifestly difficult 
to frame, especially as minds differ and stubbornly 
refuse to be worked in each other's harness. Tri- 
fling suggestions are numerous and harmless enough, 
but less valuable than their authors suppose. In 
my own case, I usually read the table of contents 
first, then the preface, and then the last chapter of 
the book, especially if it is a novel or from an 
unknown pen ; for what is the use of going all 
through the volume if the climax is stupid, foolish, 
or impossible ? If the writer buries all his heroes 
at the close, why should I burden my brain with 
the wearisome task of following fortunes that lead 
to so obvious and funereal an end ? Then I gen- 
erally mark passages in the books I read, express 
my opinion in marginal notes of the style and 
sentiments, in a manner highly creditable to my 
candor if not to my charity. Moreover, I fre- 
quently make an index of my own on the blank 



412 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

pages with which the pubHshers conveniently line 
the covers, and, by consulting it, can easily refresh 
my mind as to what I regard as brilliant and worth 
remembering. I likewise aim to distribute my 
reading, by a mental process, pigeon-holing it, so to 
speak, assigning what pertains to the department 
of poetry, or philosophy, or religion, or science, or 
history, as the case may require. But I am all too 
conscious of the defects of my own system, if sys- 
tem it may be called, to enjoin it on others. What 
assists me might hinder my neighbors, and my 
neighbors ' plans might prove a fatal stumbling- 
block to me. Every one must carefully feel his 
way to his own method, and if he is in earnest, he 
will ultimately evolve one that will at least serve 
him as a pair of crutches, even if it cannot do 
duty as wings. 

But though I am diffident as to the formulating 
of specific rules, there are several precautions I 
venture to make, and the first is. Avoid aimlessness 
and irreverence in reading. Be sure to have a 
purpose, and let it be approached with becoming 
gravity. Machiavelli, when visiting in the country, 
writes to Vittori as to his pursuits in field and 
garden, and then adds : 

When evening comes I return home, and shut myself up 
in my study. Before I make my appearance in it, I take off 
my rustic garb, soiled with mud and dirt, and put on a dress 
adapted for courts or cities ; thus fitly habited I enter the 
antique resorts of the ancients ; where being received, I feed 
on that food which alone is mine, and for which I was born. 
For an interval of four hours I feel no annoyance. I forget 
every grief, I neither fear poverty nor death, but am totally 
immersed. 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 413 

In this adorning of the outward person, there 
is a fine touch of respect for the authors he 
desires to meet, and a just recognition of the 
worthy benefits they confer. While, of course, it 
would be absurd to recommend my young friends 
to put on full dress when they hold fellowship 
with books, it is not too much to urge on them 
a suitable preparation of mind for the interview. 
The body may be in rags, but the mind should 
be in courtier garb ; the head may be covered, 
but the soul should be in an attitude of homage. 
To read profitably, one needs something of the 
gentle tolerance of Sainte-Beuve, something of the 
intuition of Hazlitt, something of the sympathy of 
Lamb, something of the analytic power of Spen- 
cer, and, above all, much of the profound venera- 
tion that distinguishes Ruskin and Carlyle. There 
are many persons who are strangers to such feel- 
ings. They would take off their hats on enter- 
ing a mortuary chapel and show due respect to a 
vault where rests the mighty dead, but no kindred 
emotion is kindled in the presence of what remains 
entombed in noble volumes of the genius that 
thrilled and delighted other ages. And yet, rever- 
ence is as surely becoming in the one case as in the 
other. Nevertheless, in a multitude of instances, 
the book is taken up carelessly, perused in fiippant 
mood and without any particular aim or purpose, 
unless that be called purpose which merely seeks 
an hour's diversion. It is as though you were to 
saunter into the drawing room of a cultivated lady, 
trifle with the bric-a-brac, and at last say to your 
hostess that you did not call to see her, have no 



414 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

particular or remote interest in her, and rejoice that 
you may now be happily released from her unin- 
teresting presence. 

To correct this deplorable defect, it is necessary 
that the young man form an adequate idea of the 
true value of reading ; that he keep steadily before 
him what its real object is, and never lose sight of 
it when he settles himself down to work in his 
modest library. Montaigne says : "The principal 
use of reading to me is that, by various objects, it 
rouses my reason, it employs my judgment, not 
my memory." But though it does not tax the 
memory at the time, it will enrich it if there is seri- 
ous attention — that is, reverence for the business 
in hand. Some one has declared that '' the chief 
end of all reading in a world like this should be 
action." Probably he is correct, though I hold 
another opinion, or rather a modification of this 
opinion. While undoubtedly it should equip us, 
and show us how to do things, and inspire us to 
the doing, it should nourish our intellectual life, 
and preserve us from mental sloth and degeneracy. 

Wholesome reading is a kind of gymnasium for 
the generation of strength, an armory for the exer- 
cise of arms, and a royal banquet for the assimi- 
lation of choicest viands. At times, it must be 
confessed, these ends are lost sight of, and books 
serve a purpose similar to that which is attained by 
the use of tobacco and opium. They are not em- 
ployed for purposes of nutrition, but rather for 
excitement or for the enjoyment of intellectual 
drunkenness. This species of smoking is going on 
all around us. It induces oblivion, and produces 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 4I5 

neither enlightenment nor energy. This Hterary 
opium habit is fatal to truthfulness, honesty, and to 
other qualities indispensable to high mental attain- 
ments, and is precursor to the entire prostration of 
memory and the power of reflection. Without 
reverence or seriousness, how can it be otherwise 
than that there should be aimlessness, or, even 
what is worse, a mere morbid craving for condi- 
ments and stimulants ? And in such sad examples, 
we have an illustration of the truth of Milton's 
reproach : 

The man who reads 
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not 
A spirit and judgment equal or superior, 
(And what he brings why need he elsewhere seek ?) 
Uncertain and unsettled still remains. 
Deep versed in books, but shallow in himself, 
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys 
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, 
As children gather pebbles by the shore. 

I suggest another precaution : Avoid immoder- 
ateness and superficialness in reading. Be careful 
not to go too fast nor attempt too much. Remem- 
ber that excess of fuel will sometimes extinguish 
the fire, and that the flame of our own thoughts 
may be smothered and quenched by too great 
avidity to receive the thoughts of others. The 
more extended the landscape, as a rule, the less 
distinct its particular features and the wider our 
survey of literature, the less likely shall we be to 
note its individual charms. ** I have been round 
the world with Captain Cook," said aii intelligent 
sailor to an expectant company that had gathered 



I 



41 6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

to hear his marvels of travel, **and all that I saw 
was the sky above me and the water beneath me." 
Those two expanses were so vast that they dwarfed 
into invisibility every other object. The eye was 
so pained by the effort to compass these boundaries 
that it was blind to many minor attractions that 
came within its range. 

Let us be on our guard, or we may miss posses- 
sion of substantial wealth by our unwise rapacious- 
ness. The danger is great. Time was when this 
was a bookless globe, but nowadays we have liter- 
ature, such as it is, in abundance. Multitudes of 
newspapers print each morning the good and bad 
things said and done the day before, and tracts, 
pamphlets, and magazines, are multiplied beyond 
calculation. What may fittingly be termed ** rail- 
way literature," that which can be disposed of at a 
steam-engine's rate of speed, and which condenses 
a science, a biography, a philosophy, within the 
narrow limits of a magazine article, has grown im- 
measurably. These publications "make mincemeat 
of leviathan, and distribute soup to the indigent, 
made of the bones and sinews of behemoth. They 
hash up with sippets and sauce, to suit the taste of 
the indolent, the bodies of the old giants of his- 
tory." ' 

The mischief of the present tendency is, that the 
public obtains a smattering of many things and 
rarely has accurate knowledge of anything, and has 
come to entertain a very fallacious belief in its own 
omniscience. Though information is gained in 

1 See " Minor Moralities." 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 417 

many instances from reviews, or from sources cer- 
tainly not original, — higher criticism having been 
gleaned second-hand from ''Robert Elsmere," and 
history having been derived from Sir Walter Scott, 
Miss Muloch, or Alexandre Dumas, — there is an 
affectation of culture that would be ridiculous were 
it not for the evident sincerity of the individuals 
who have so completely deceived themselves. 

But if magazines are in part responsible for the 
prevailing shallowness, some of our popular reading 
clubs are not entirely clear of blame. These insti- 
tutions are usually designed to promote more 
thorough study of various authors, such as Shakes- 
peare, Browning, and Dante, and, in not a few 
instances, are remarkably useful ; but they are not 
unalloyed blessings. Frequently they attempt too 
much and work too superficially. In a city that 
shall be nameless, a lady called on me to assist her 
in preparing a paper on Egyptian animal worship. 
The conversation led me naturally to interrogate 
her as to the aims of her club, and finally elicited 
from her a statement of what the members at- 
tempted at a single meeting. The programme, 
running through an hour-and-a-half, embraced a 
ten-minutes' review of the origin of Greek art, a 
five-minutes' talk on the genius of Michael An- 
gelo, fifteen minutes to Egyptian worship, with the 
rest of the time divided between socialism, Emer- 
son, and Froebel. 

This hodge-podge, this olla podrida of literature, 
like some table d' hote dinners in Europe, may be 
excellent for diversion, but must prove altogether 
too scrappy for nourishment. This probably is an 

2B 



41 8 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

extreme case of club cramming ; but it opens up 
the question concerning the real value of guilds 
and associations for purposes of reading. Subtract 
the time necessary to go and to come from such 
gatherings, and the time spent in ordinary social 
proprieties, and then determine whether the gain 
derived from the speakers is such as greatly to out- 
weigh the gain you would receive from the same 
number of hours spent by yourself alone with your 
books. This will doubtless depend on the char- 
acter of the gentlemen who are the leading inter- 
preters of the authors studied. If they are of the 
mental calibre of Professor W. T. Harris, or Pro- 
fessor D. Snyder, or Professor Davidson, or Mr. 
Frothingham, the compensation received will doubt- 
less be adequate ; but if they are ordinary men — 
men of platitude, meagre in genius and mediocre 
in scholarship — the return will certainly not pay 
for the investment. 

Moreover, there is a danger that the habitue of 
such reading circles will come to lose his own indi- 
viduality and his ability to judge for himself De- 
ferring to the opinions of others, especially of men 
eminent in letters, he may come to question his 
right to an opinion of his own. What was sought 
at first as a help may become a hindrance ; what 
was desired as an aid to thoroughness may, in the 
end, prove a temptation to superficiality. If our 
so-called helpers unfit us to form an independent 
estimate of what we read, and if we must have 
everything interpreted for us before we presume to 
understand anything, then v/e have sold ourselves 
into bondage, and I am afraid — to use a Scripture 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 419 

statement — that our " last estate is worse than the 
first." 

Permit me Hkewise to remind you that the end 
of reading is to obtain a thorough insight into an 
author's meaning, into his motive, and almost into 
his very soul. The mind must be concentrated on 
the page ; it must dive into it and not skim over it, 
and — if I may dare pursue the image farther — 
bathe in it and be immersed and overwhelmed. 
There must be receptiveness, meditation, and as- 
similation. There are books that should be read 
line by line, with a settled determination to obtain 
from each a clear impression and a definite con- 
ception. They ought to be mastered slowly, as 
slowly and painfully as a great work of art is pro- 
duced by the brush or chisel. What such pains- 
taking and plodding devotion to excellence means 
is happily illustrated by an incident in the life of a 
remarkable man, related in a current periodical : 

When Samuel F. B. Morse, afterward famous as the in- 
ventor of the electric telegraph, was a young painter study- 
ing in London, he made a drawing from a small cast of the 
Farnese Hercules, intending to offer it to Benjamin West as 
an example of his work. Being very anxious for the favor- 
able opinion of the master, he spent a fortnight upon the 
drawing, and thought he had made it perfect. 

When Mr. West saw the drawing, he examined it criti- 
cally, commended it in this and that particular, then 
handed it back, saying : "Very well, sir, very well ; go on 
and finish it." 

"But it is finished," said the young artist. 

"Oh, no !" said Mr. West ; "look here, and here, and 
here," and he put his finger upon various unfinished places. 

Mr. Morse saw the defects now that they were pointed 
out to him, and devoted another week to remedying them. 



420 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Then he carried the drawing again to the master. Mr, 
West was evidently much pleased, and lavished praises 
upon the work ; but at the end he handed it back and said, 
as before : ' ' Very well, indeed, sir ; go on and finish it ' ' 

"Is it not finished?" asked Mr. Morse, by this time all 
but discouraged. 

"Not yet; you have not marked that muscle, nor the 
articulations of the finger-joints." 

The student once more took the drawing home and 
spent several days in retouching it. He would have it done 
this time. But the critic was not yet satisfied. The work 
was good, ' ' very good, indeed ; remarkably clever ' ' ; but it 
needed to be "finished." 

"I cannot finish it," said Mr. Morse, in despair. 

' ' Well, ' ' answered Mr. West, ' ' I have tried you long 
enough. You have learned more by this drawing than you 
would have accomplished in double the time by a dozen 
half-finished drawings. It is not numerous drawings, but 
the character of one that makes a thorough draughtsman. 
Finish one picture, sir, and you are a painter." 

Read a masterpiece of literature in this spirit, 
constantly returning to it like sunbeams returning, 
after the brief eclipse of clouds, to the flowers, still 
dissatisfied and still seeking new beauties, and it is 
wonderful how much of charm will reward per- 
sistence. Return to the beginning when you have 
reached the end. Think your way through it, like 
Stanley "blazing" a path through the forests of 
darkest Africa, and then retraverse the highway 
you have already trodden. Let this be repeated 
until one great book has been made your own, and 
the conquest of the second will be none the less 
complete, but it will be accomplished with more 
facility ; and, a worthy habit being thus established, 
you will be able to compass the fair fields of liter- 
ature with ever-increasing ease and profit 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 42 1 

A passage from the *' Excursion," by Words- 
worth, with elevated and stately measure, empha- 
sizes and illuminates the view to which I have here 
given expression : 

So passed the time ; yet to the nearest town 
He daily went with what small overplus 
His earnings might supply, and brought away 
The book that most had tempted his desires 
While at the stall he read. Among the hills 
He gazed upon that mighty orb of song, 
The divine Milton. 

So the foundations of his mind were laid 

In such communion, not from terror free. 

While yet a child, and long before his time. 

Had he perceived the presence and the power 

Of greatness ; and deep feelings had impressed 

Great objects in his mind, with portraiture 

And color so distinct, that in his mind 

They lay like substances, and almost seemed 

To haunt the bodily sense. He had received 

A precious gift ; for as he grew in years 

With these impressions, he would still compare 

All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms; 

And being still unsatisfied with aught 

Of dimmer character, he thence attained 

An active power to fasten images 

Upon his brain ; and on their pictured lines 

Intensely brooded, even till they acquired 

The liveliness of dreams. 

Some men of genius have been described as 
deriving their inspiration from one great author in 
particular. Their triumphs have been credited to 
the wonderful influence exerted over them by 
writers like Homer, Kant, or Adam Smith. In 
these caseSj like Wordsworth's hero, they have sur- 



422 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

rendered the mind unreservedly and intently to a 
supreme and overmastering intellect. They have 
scarcely admitted a rival to their love and admira- 
tion. They have pored over his pages, analyzed 
his forms of speech, noted his peculiarities of com- 
position, and pondered his habits of thought, until 
they have been joined to him as in spiritual mar- 
riage, and from the union there have sprung new 
children of the soul to enlighten and bless man- 
kind. But whether the effect of such concentra- 
tion on the charms and virtues of a single author 
prove in any degree prolific in fresh creations or 
not, the advantage of it in the way of mental dis- 
cipline cannot be overestimated. Conquer the vol- 
ume in hand, subdue it, make it tributary to your 
own growth, and the time and labor thus bestowed 
will never be regretted. Remember that a few 
good books, thoroughly and understandingly read, 
must yield more real profit and genuine intellectual 
increment than a multitude pursued in desultory 
fashion ; and yet I would not have this generally 
conceded rule so interpreted as to narrow the 
range of inquiry to one special department. It is 
not intended to encourage partisanship in books, 
to advocate exclusive attention to science, meta- 
physics, political economy, biography, or belles- 
lettres. Far from it. Each of these subjects has 
its appropriate place and its legitimate claims, and 
should, as far as possible, be dealt with fairly and 
on its merits. The point made is not that the 
mind should confine itself to a contracted and uni- 
form class of works, but that it should establish 
the habit of making haste slowly by thinking its 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 423 

way carefully from cover to cover through such 
publications as it considers entitled to serious 
attention. 

Bias in literature is not wholesome. A clergy- 
man who, in former days, bitterly denounced 
novels, confessed that he had never perused one. 
Being criticised and ridiculed on his evident 
bigotry, and realizing that the point made against 
him was well taken, as it was hardly reasonable 
that he could judge intelligently unless he had 
examined for himself, he determined to look into 
the stories of Sir Walter Scott. For weeks — so 
runs the legend — he secluded himself, neglected 
his parish, repeated on Sunday old sermons, and 
was almost entirely alienated from his meals. At 
the end of his experiment, he astonished his rapt 
auditors by telling them from the pulpit that he 
had found novels as pernicious as he had always 
supposed they were ; that for three months he had 
done nothing but read them ; and that they had so 
fascinated and interested him that he had been un- 
able to write any discourses, or devote himself to his 
religious duties. His people smiled and were not 
convinced ; for his method had been transparently 
and amusingly irrational. What business had he 
to give his days and nights to romances? Such 
dissipation would naturally exhaust his vitality and 
unfit him for ordinary work. No one in his senses 
would recommend such absurd devotion, and no 
one could expect any other sequence than a cer- 
tain kind of revulsion following excess. It would 
have been very different with our parson if he had 
been moderate in his joys. If he had taken the 



424 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

novel as a refreshing or composing draught, as a 
stimulant or sedative, and had then consecrated his 
recuperated energies to more serious business, he 
would have been wiser and stronger for his indul- 
gence. 

His mistake has frequently been repeated in 
graver departments of reading. Some men have 
abandoned themselves to the seductions of science, 
and have become so infatuated with material things 
that no other study could possibly charm them. 
They have come to doubt the reality of eveiything 
outside of their special domain, particularly to 
question the reality of the spiritual and super- 
natural. Metaphysicians have at times rivaled 
them in exclusivism. To many teachers of intel- 
lectual philosophy there is nothing worthy of 
inquiiy save man, and nothing in man of any im- 
portance save mind ; and to all such, the labors of 
enthusiastic physicists are incomprehensible and 
delusive. The thoroughgoing mathematician is 
usually credited with indifference, if not antipathy, 
to poetry ; and poets are not supposed to be capa- 
ble of appreciating the excellence of mathematics ; 
and the worshiper at the shrine of the litcfce hu- 
maniores has often been incurably blind to the 
altar of the literce divincE. They have been so 
completely absorbed in their sole idol as to have 
no eyes for the varied grandeurs of the literary 
Pantheon. 

In this way one-sided men are fashioned — nar- 
row, hard, dogmatic, intolerant of others' opinions, 
and disqualified by their unhappy bias for friendly 
co-operation with those who differ from them. It 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 425 

is, perhaps, not unfair to compare these partisans 
with the famous Ferrara geese, the magnitude of 
whose Hvers was fatal to their harmonious de- 
velopment. What was gained by one organ ex- 
hausted and impoverished the vitality of other 
organs. Like their present wretched successors of 
Strasburg, they were good for a preparation resem- 
bling the modern pate de foie gras, on which a 
Heliogabalus might feed, but beyond such a dig- 
nity they were not fitted to rise. Abnormal at- 
tachment to one department of enlightment must 
similarly tend to unnatural cultivation of a par- 
ticular faculty, and consequently to a species of 
intellectual deformity. By this process not only is 
the character warped, but the possibilities of use- 
fulness are circumscribed. It may afford some 
degree of nourishment and comfort to the gour- 
mand who hungers for a special diet, but it can 
never yield fullness of happiness or of mental life 
to its subject. 

As wide as human interest should be the circle 
of human reading. A library, in a sense, should 
represent the universe, and the student should be 
on terms of correspondence with its every part. 
Thoroughness of method should not signify meager- 
ness of territory, and intense sunlike illumination of 
a definite theme should never necessitate a narrow- 
ing of the horizon. Breadth of purpose and of 
view should go hand in hand with depth and vigor 
of execution ; and while one kind of books should 
not be permitted entirely to usurp time and thought 
to the displacement of others, so, if generous and 
genuine culture is craved, no books of any kind 



426 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

should be allowed to hinder the mind's close and 
intimate communion with itself. Reading may so 
occupy the restless intellect as to prevent reflec- 
tion. 

This trifling preachment must be excused. The 
shop will intrude. I cannot altogether forget my 
vocation. But then, the warning is of moment. 
Not a few excellent people have overlooked the 
fact that they needed to know themselves, as well 
as to know what others had written. Failing at 
this point, they have become mere bookworms or 
bibliomaniacs. Their attention to the Babel of 
authors has rendered them oblivious to the speech 
of their own souls. The roar and clatter of many 
eloquent tongues without have drowned the plain- 
tive sweetness of the voice within. They continue 
in ignorance of themselves, and, in my opinion, 
owing to this ignorance never more than half 
understand the volumes they devour so greedily. 
These friends need to recall Sir Edwin Arnold's 
suggestive lines : ^ 

It is not to be known by knowledge ! Man 
Wotteth it not by wisdom ! Learning vast 
Haks short of it ! Only by soul itself 
Is soul perceived — when the soul wills it so ; 
There shines no light save its own light to show 
Itself unto itself. 

If this shall be remembered, and if books shall 
impel the mind to explore itself and to adjust itself 
to the mysterious universe of being, whether visible 
in humanity or invisible in God, reading will have 

1 See "Secret of Death." 



ON CULTIVATING A LOVE OF BOOKS 427 

served its highest function, and will have demon- 
strated the soundness of the method followed, and 
the sublimity of the motive honored. And then 
hopeful youth will not waste its powers, nor 
merely teach itself 

To jabber argument, chop logic, pore 
On sun and moon, and worship whirligig. 

But instead, the studious lad will grow in God- 
grand selfhood, and, with each shimmering of in- 
creasing knowledge, give proof of soul unfolding, 
as ''faintest circlet may prophesy the coming orb," 
while with "wise words launched by music on 
their voyage," he may help to fill the earth with 
"light and sweetness." 



XII 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELA- 
TION 

Lord, thy word abideth. 
And our footsteps guideth ; 

Who its truth believeth 
Light and joy receiveth. 

Oh that we, discerning 
Lts most holy learning, 
Lord, may love and fear theey 
jEvermore be near thee. 

Because amid the wintry vast 

Of worlds, the voiceless gloom of space^ 
L pine for love, and learn at last 

That nowhere beams so calm a face^ 
With eyes so filled with love as true^ 

As deep, as tender. Lord, as thine^ 
L kneel before thy Cross anew 

And hold thy manhood all divine, 

IT is generally conceded that some kind of 
religion is a universal necessity. The latest 
of the centuries corroborates and confirms the un- 
broken testimony of all the preceding centuries on 
this point. There is really no serious dissent. 
Man, as a savage, as a barbarian, and as a civilized 
being, seeks fellowship with the unseen, feels after 
God, and is vaguely conscious of a personal life 
surviving and transcending the present life. In- 
stinctively he worships ; frequently he prays ; and 
oftentimes through sacrifice attempts to pacify the 
428 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 429 

anger of the offended Deity. His methods of 
service may be faulty, his theological beliefs may 
be crude, his ceremonial observances may be su- 
perstitious, and his supplications may resemble in- 
cantations ; nevertheless, his confidence in the 
reality of spiritual things cannot successfully be 
disputed. Young men, very young men, have 
been known to talk flightily of the world's dispens- 
ing with religion ; of this age having outgrown its 
authority; and of themselves having attained to 
such enlightenment of mind and liberty of thought 
as to be quite delivered from subjection to its in- 
fluences and teachings. If the eye of any such 
youth falls on this page, let me assure him that he 
is thoroughly mistaken. And if he suspects me of 
professional bias, he must permit me to call his 
attention to the last edition of Heine's " Religion 
and Philosophy in Germany," to Prof Romanes' 
"Thoughts on Religion," and to Mr. Balfour's book, 
the "Foundations of Belief" The fact is, the more 
this subject is investigated, the more unimpeachable 
becomes the conviction that humanity as a whole 
cannot be satisfied and cannot thrive without a 
faith. This much, therefore, may be taken for 
granted ; and nearly all the atheous talk to the 
contrary may be set down to the vaporings of 
juvenility intoxicated by the pride of knowledge, 
or to the blusterings of egotism drugged by selfish- 
ness and self-assurance. Man must have a relig- 
ion, will have a religion. Of this we need have no 
doubt. But, what kind of religion ? 

This is the real issue that confronts us to-day, 
and one that the men of to-morrow cannot escape. 



430 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



It agitates many circles in various lands at present. 
The fight of the godless portion of the world is not 
against ethnic creeds or against naturalistic wor- 
ship, but against the religion of revelation. Pro- 
pose eclecticism, the selection of some choice bits 
from Confucius, from Buddha, from Mohammed, 
and from Christ, and a considerable portion of 
society will nod its delightful approval ; and pro- 
claim that the Christian system is only one of 
others, entitled perhaps to more but not to exclu- 
sive consideration ; and not a few scholars and 
teachers will extol the position as philosophical and 
commendably advanced. But if it is maintained 
that the Bible is the only and supreme authority, 
disclosing to the soul all that is vital to its deepest 
and greatest needs, a multitude of discordant 
voices will immediately clamor a denial. This has 
always been questioned by some ; it is now repudi- 
ated by many. It is declared here and there, and 
from quarters least expected, that while religion is 
indispensable, the religion of revelation, as inter- 
preted by evangelical creeds, is no longer credible 
and can no longer be received. 

But what are the grounds for so startling and so 
radical an assumption ? Why should the impres- 
sion be fostered that the faith of the fathers is 
henceforth impossible to their children? There 
must be reasons for this alleged inability of the ris- 
ing and more-cultured generation to accept what 
has sustained and comforted the generations gone. 
What are they ? Are they weighty, sound, con- 
clusive ? I do not, I am sure, misstate the case, 
when I contend that these reasons, such as they 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 43 1 

are, spring in no small degree from what is sup- 
posed to be the logical effects of certain modern 
theories regarding the composition and trustworthi- 
ness of the revelation itself Evangelical religion is 
being discredited, not because of any inherent ab- 
surdity in the doctrines it inculcates or the duties it 
enjoins, but because the authority by which they 
have in the past been sanctioned is being invali- 
dated by theyz;2 de siecle intelligence and criticism. 
The old Book is not now what it was to untold 
thousands in a former age. To some persons it has 
ceased to be a supernatural volume altogether and 
has become a national literature ; to others it is 
very crude, often very erroneous in its conceptions 
and ridiculous in its representations ; and yet to 
others it is devoid of exceptional inspiration or 
moral grandeur. 

It is related of Pompey, that on entering Jeru- 
salem as a conqueror, about the year 64 b. c, he 
determined to explore the recesses of the temple. 
Thrusting aside the remonstrances of his comrades, 
who sought to restrain him from the irreverence, he 
lifted the sacred veil and entered the Holy of 
Holies. Surprise almost overcame him ; for in that 
place, jealously guarded from human intrusion, 
where he had expected to find some visible glory 
of the Unseen, he found nothing. To his heathen 
eyes it was only an empty chamber ; and yet 
where he saw only vacancy there dwelt the invis- 
ible Jehovah. But of all temples none can com- 
pare in mysterious majesty with the temple of 
truth ; and we claim that its holiest of all, the 
Bible, transcends every other department in pre- 



432 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

ciousness and supereminent splendor. And yet 
there are some minds so strangely constituted, or 
perhaps so blindly prejudiced by their pursuits, 
that they discern, or assert that they discern, no 
trace of this. They cross the threshold in the 
book of Genesis, they draw aside the curtains 
wrought with cherubim and with ** the blue and 
purple and scarlet" threads, symbolic of God's 
love, sovereignty, and sacrifice ; and yet to them 
everything is a dreary blank. To them there is 
only solitude. Though "high divinity*' gleam on 
every page, they see it not. They declare the 
Bible to be an empty book, devoid of exceptional 
genius and originality, and destitute of extraordi- 
nai y truth ; and nowhere do they admit that the 
hand or presence of the Almighty can be discerned 
in its pretentious teachings. Like Pompey, they 
profess to have searched for God ; and they report 
him absent from the volume that purports to be his 
peculiar dwelling-place. 

Straightway some among these belated inquirers, 
like the famous American agnostic, begin to mock 
and ridicule. This is the easiest of all methods to 
adopt in attempting to discredit fact and truth. 
Coarse souls can be more potently affected by cruel 
jokes than by cogent argument, and shouts of 
laughter are more to them than painful reasoning. 
Though the Pharisees and Sadducees could not 
answer Christ, they could array him in a purple 
robe, and could scoff his Messianic claims into 
momentary silence. And though persecution failed 
to exterminate Christianity from Rome, at least its 
holy confessors could be ridiculed. Recently it has 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 433 

been shown from a rude painting discovered on the 
wall of an ancient building that even the great Suf- 
ferer on the cross was drawn as a human being 
wearing the head of an ass. Another figure is in- 
troduced in the same composition and at the bot- 
tom of the picture we have the mocking words : 
"Alexis worships his God." But although scorn 
and derision arrayed themselves against the Saviour 
and his church, and ran to the wildest extremes in 
the buffoonery of Celsus and Lucian, — the latter 
finding a theme for scurrilous mirth in the annals 
of martyrdom, — they failed to arrest the progress 
of his kingdom. It was not very difficult to find 
material for gibe, quip, and taunt in the assump- 
tion of Jesus ; but scoffing, no more than the 
Roman sentry, could prevent his rising from the 
dead. So, likewise, it requires no stupendous in- 
tellectualism to satirize the Scriptures. Any blas- 
pheming idiot can do that. But it is well to con- 
sider the pitiableness of the undertaking. I can 
remember when wits made themselves jovial over a 
comic history of England in which the noblest 
leaders and grandest achievements of the nation 
were caricatured. This infamy however in the long 
run was not favored by the public. The better 
thought of Englishmen came to perceive that they 
could not afford to have their annals turned into 
jests. And in my opinion the sober judgment of 
the world will reject the men who hope to over- 
throw the Bible by their despicable satire. It will 
ultimately realize that the assailants who fall into 
the ways of Scaramouch and count them argu- 
ments, are not merely ridiculing a venerable book, 

2C 



434 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

but are deriding a race and a descent which were 
chosen of God to be truth-bearers to the world, 
and are entitled to respect on account of their un- 
equaled service on behalf of spiritual growth and 
moral beauty. 

These profane jesters likewise are indirectly ren- 
dering grotesque and farcical the sublimest move- 
ments of history, such as the Reformation and the 
migration of the Puritans ; and are pouring con- 
tempt on the loftiest ideals and the most elevating 
hopes and principles that ever cemented and glori- 
fied society. This vandalism may be tolerated for 
a while, but it cannot be approved ; and if we 
may judge from history, it cannot finally succeed in 
its disreputable purpose. 

This indecent treatment of revelation has un- 
doubtedly been encouraged by the effect produced 
by the higher criticism on some leaders of thought 
and on some thoughtless followers. They profess 
inability to harmonize the findings of this criticism, 
as they understand them, with inspiration, and 
insist that it is going altogether too far to expect 
continual reverence for a volume whose professed 
friends admit that it is full of errors. Why should 
they, on the strength of a reputation formerly en- 
joyed, render further homage to a book, when, in 
their opinion, that reputation has been fatally 
smirched by unbiased investigation ? They are 
unwilling to prostrate themselves before a corpse 
in a tomb or to subscribe any longer to a sover- 
eignty that is crownless.^ It may please such a 

^ Heine, " Religion and Philosophy in Gennany. " 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 435 

ruler as Otho III. to enter the vault holding the 
mortal remains of Charlemagne, and seeing the 
body, not stretched out like other dead, but seated 
on a bench like a living person, to bow before the 
glittering coronet and to invest the form with a 
white robe, repairing the decayed nose with a bit 
of gold and cutting the nails which had pierced 
through the leather of the gloves ; but it is not 
quite so agreeable to the enlightened mind, this 
sort of self-abasement before a defunct, though 
regally decorated, revelation. It is claimed that 
the higher critic has penetrated the Bible sarcopha- 
gus and has brought to light a dead faith ; and that 
no amount of golden rhetoric and no paring of 
the nails and no constrained professions of loyalty 
can ever rouse it again to life. Professors and cer- 
tain preachers may deceive themselves ; but they 
cannot long deceive the public by their repeated 
declarations of a belief in the inspiration of Scrip- 
tures which their theories undermine and destroy. 

Such sentiments as these are being freely ex- 
pressed, and where they are not articulated they 
are silently cherished. They are in some instances 
cherished with a strength that defies reasonable 
remonstrance. Young men especially are influ- 
enced by them ; and while we are encouraged by 
vast movements like that of the Christian Endeavor 
toward the Cross, we ought not to overlook the op- 
posite trend. I am interested particularly in our 
youth ; and I am exceedingly anxious that they 
should not implicitly concur in these very extreme 
inferences from what is understood to be higher 
criticism. I admit if we can no longer trust the 



43 6 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

revelation, we can no longer accept the religion 
communicated in the revelation. If the voice of 
God is not in the book, then there can be very little 
in it of supreme importance to the soul. The 
logical connection between premise and conclusion 
cannot successfully be controverted. But is it true 
that the new criticism necessarily invalidates the 
revelation? Is there no middle ground? Have 
not our infidel friends and some of the more timid 
spirits among believers jumped too hastily and too 
far in their wonder at the novel attitude of some 
avowed Christian students and teachers? I for one 
believe that they do not discriminate as they should ; 
and that their rejection of the Scriptures as a gift 
of God is without sufficient warrant. 

The present Message is designed to make good 
this position ; to satisfy if possible my young read- 
ers, that the foundation of the old faith, notwith- 
standing the hammerings and poundings it has 
recently endured, standeth firm, and if we may 
judge from the present will remain immovable to 
the end. 

It is a serious mistake to assume that the higher 
criticism necessarily, inevitably, as it were by its 
very nature, impairs the authority of revelation. I 
say "necessarily," because I realize that there is a 
form of such criticism which it seems impossible to 
reconcile with a theory of direct Divine interposi- 
tion or superintendence in its preparation. But 
this does not hold good of another form, and one, 
in my judgment, more scientific in its spirit. What 
I am anxious to show the men of to-morrow is 
that current theories concerning the human origin 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 437 

and construction of the Bible do not of themselves, 
and apart from some gratuitous and untenable hy- 
pothesis, invalidate its right to speak in the name 
of God. It must not be forgotten that from a re- 
mote period learned and godly students have com- 
mented freely on the sacred books, rejecting some 
and disputing the dates and authorship of others. 
The method employed to-day in analyzing the 
Scriptures is not exactly new. It is in fact only 
new in its scope and precision. Ministers and 
scholars long before the birth of Vatke, Graf, Kay- 
ser, Delitzsch, Kuenen, Cheyne, or Robertson Smith 
applied it, and in doing so were not necessarily 
guilty of antagonizing the doctrine of inspiration ; 
and we in thinking of their labors do not feel com- 
pelled to call in question their essential orthodoxy. 
In the sixth century, Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, 
rejected verbal inspiration and pointed out the ab- 
surdities which it involves. Erasmus, nearer our 
own time, omitted some texts which had been ac- 
cepted as authentic, and which have been rejected 
by the Canterbury version ; and he plainly said, 
''some of the Epistles ascribed to St. Paul are cer- 
tainly not his." Martin Luther went so far as to 
call in question the soundness of St. Paul's allegori- 
cal interpretation of the story of Sarah and Hagar ; 
and his rejection of St. James has never been de- 
nied. ''I do not esteem this an apostolic epistle; 
I will not have it in my Bible among the canonical 
books," he wrote ; and then added his ever-famous 
reference to it as *'an epistle of straw." But if the 
Reformer could thus deprive this letter of its reputed 
author, and yet be honored as a leader of evan- 



438 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

gelical thought, why should the teacher or preacher 
who believes that Genesis was not wholly penned by 
Moses be ostracised as hopelessly heretical? Me- 
lancthon sympathized with his great leader in the 
sifting process to which he subjected the Scriptures, 
while Carlstadt insisted that the authorship of the 
Pentateuch was unknown and undiscoverable ; and 
Andreas ]\Iaes, a Romanist, declared that the Penta- 
teuch had been edited by Ezra, who in the course 
of his labors had added various phrases and sen- 
tences. 

Opinions such as tliese were not, of course, al- 
lowed to pass without censure. They were con- 
demned in various quarters. But they survived the 
storm of persecution, and after Spinoza, reappeared 
in the writings of Richard Simon, Le Clerc, and 
Jean Astruc. The last was a French physician 
who lived one hundred and fort\' \'ears agro, and 
who claimed that two parallel narratives practically 
independent of each other existed in the early 
portions of Genesis, and were distinguished by the 
names of the deit}-, Jehovah occurring in one col- 
umn and Elohim in tlie other. Then came Eich- 
hom pursuing the theor\-, from whose times the 
term "Higher Criticism" came into vogue. Since 
his dav the school to which he belons^ed has in- 
creased, and now numbers among its adherents 
some of the most illustrious of contemporar\- schol- 
ars. Eichhom vras a devout man ; so is Farrar ; so 
is Driver ; and so are multitudes of others in Eng- 
land and America who follow in their footsteps. They 
do not find it impossible to exalt the book which 
they ver}' freely criticize, nor to subscribe to the 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 439 

great docrines which it unfolds. They reverence 
the one and profess the other. It will not do for 
any sensible man to ignore the growing importance 
of the critical movement. The pope of Rome has 
indeed commended in an Encyclical what is known 
as the traditional view ; but from all that we have 
learned of the working of his infallibility we are 
not reassured of his advocacy ; for generally what 
he decrees to be truth turns out to be error. A 
Catholic scholar in the '' Contemporary" admirably 
answered his holiness, and almost ridiculed his 
pretensions; while Mr. Gore in the ''Guardian" 
said that the Encyclical was "written by a being 
inhabiting a planet different from that which is 
the scene of modern knowledge." The pope's 
singular espousal of the traditional conception 
has not strengthened its hold on the age ; and 
its practical abandonment by Professors Sayce and 
Sanday, of Oxford, has materially diminished its 
influence. But all who have read the volume of 
the last-named teacher on ''Inspiration," or the 
work of the first-named on "The Higher Criticism 
and the Monuments," must acquit them both of 
any intentional disloyalty to the divine word, or of 
any disposition to undermine its supreme authority. 
We may not be able always to harmonize their posi- 
tions with their conclusions ; but we would be churl- 
ish not to accept in simple faith their representa- 
tions of their own mental attitude toward the sacred 
books. As we cannot suppose that these eminent 
teachers are destitute of the logical faculty, and as 
we must credit them with absolute honesty, it seems 
that every form or type of higher criticism is not 



440 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

necessarily fatal to continued confidence in the 
Bible as the authoritative revelation of God. This 
much we are constrained to concede. This much 
ought to be allowed by every conscientious student. 
Though he may differ from many assumptions ad- 
vanced in the interest of criticism, he ought cheer- 
fully to acknowledge that such assumptions may be 
held consistently with a sincere belief in the super- 
natural origin of the Scriptures. 

I for one would not be understood as agreeing 
with everything put forth even by evangelical 
writers on the subject we are considering. Against 
not a few of their confident statements may be 
written the Scotch verdict of ** not proven." When 
a theory is grounded on the alleged semi-barbarous 
times of Moses, and when it is proclaimed that the 
act of writing was not sufficiently developed to 
produce the crudest literature, I decline to sub- 
scribe to its teachings. Explorers, like Professor 
Sayce, strengthen me in this declination. Such 
representations are untenable, and only crass ig- 
norance will persevere in repeating them. It is 
well known that of late there have been unwearied 
researches conducted in the district of Babylonia ; 
Frenchmen and Americans have been following in 
the footsteps of Layard and Loftus. Most of the 
recovered treasures have been taken by the Otto- 
man Government, and some fifty thousand speci- 
mens of ancient records are stored in the Museum 
of Constantinople. These are in the form of clay 
tablets of various sizes. Multitudes of these have 
also been placed in the British Museum. Many 
of them relate to a period antedating the birth of 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 44 1 

the Jewish lawgiver. Thus Sayce has within the 
last twelve months published that he believes he 
has discovered Nimrod in the cuneiform inscrip- 
tions. He writes from Assuan : ''His full name 
was Nazi Muruda the Kassu, and he was the Baby- 
lonian contemporary of the father of the Assyrian 
kings who restored Nineveh and founded Calah, 
about fifty years before the exodus. So Moses 
seems to have been right after all." But as show- 
ing the conditions of the world at this early period 
we have memorials of a commercial house that 
flourished in the days of Abraham — Zini-Istar and 
sons, evidently bankers and agents. One tablet 
shows that they dealt in oil and slaves and real 
estate. We have the memorandum presei'ved : 
" The house which Baka has for one year leased, 
for the year's rent one-third of a shekel of silver 
he pays." Rather a moderate rent ; but probably 
the house was moderate also. These interesting 
memorials, revealing the art of computing and the 
art of writing, prove beyond a doubt that Moses 
could have composed the book of Genesis or could 
have easily combined the various materials, tradi- 
tions, and stories already existing, and thus have 
perpetuated the knowledge of primitive history. 
The age was sufficiently cultured for this to have 
been done. 

But it has been childishly held that the lawgiver 
could not have penned the "Pentateuch" because 
there is an account in it of his own death ; and in 
the nature of things he could not have been the 
author of that. I notice this objection, not because 
of its importance, but because it is reiterated with 



442 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



the air of a Columbus discovering a new world by 
every radical critic ; even as the charge regarding 
the semi-barbarous state of the Israelites is weari- 
somely repeated. No one that I know of ever 
claimed that Moses wrote the stoiy of his own 
death. But could not I write a review of my own 
times, of the bondage of Africa and her deliver- 
ance, and of the new additions to constitutional law, 
even if my son did come in afterward and append 
a few lines regarding my last hours and my burial? 
Neither would it damage my right to have my 
name inscribed on the title-page for these personal 
details to be introduced by another hand. 

There is an impression abroad that it has been 
established beyond serious question that the books 
of the Old Testament were not composed until 
after the Babylonian captivity; and that there is 
considerable romance mixed up with Hebrew his- 
tory. Concerning the latter allegations I can only 
say that the greater our familiarity with Assyrian 
records becomes, the more precise and accurate do 
the accounts preserved in the Bible appear. It has 
been shown lately by St. Chad Boscawen that the 
invasion of Judea and the siege of Jerusalem by 
Sennacherib, with the various particulars about 
Hezekiah, obtain corroboration in what is found in 
the Assyrian cuneiform cylinders. In a word, the 
drift of modern inquiry tends rather to confirm in 
every essential detail the sacred annals than to dis- 
credit them. 

Then as to the supposition that all the critics are 
advocating a post-exilian date, I may be allowed to 
observe that this is not exactly true. I know that 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 443 

according to Professor Briggs a vast proportion of 
teachers in universities are opposed to traditional 
views, but not all. Principal Cave and Professors 
Green, Osgood, and Bucher are examples of a 
different order. Moreover there are other scholars 
who have gone to the extreme against the old 
school, and who have been compelled by wider 
learning to retrace their steps. Of these Professor 
Klostermann, of Kiel University, Germany, is a 
notable example. He has just published a volume 
in which he separates from Graf, Kuenen, Wel- 
hausen, Stade, Cheyne, and Driver. Before 1870 
he had traversed the entire field of higher criticism 
and had espoused many of its most radical conclu- 
sions. Since then he has thoroughly reviewed the 
whole subject, and now retracts much that he had 
previously maintained, and strenuously protests 
against the method of dismemberment. Nor is he 
alone ; for such men as Wright and Kirkpatrick 
of England, Westphal of France, and Strack of 
Germany sympathize with him, and warn us against 
undue confidence in the advanced positions of so- 
called experts in biblical criticism. But though 
the evidence which has convinced even conservative 
critics may fail to convince us, and though we are 
constrained on several points to wait for further 
light, we are not disposed to challenge the alle- 
giance of all these writers to the Bible as the word 
of God. 

It is however impossible to concede this much 
to those teachers who in their criticisms proceed 
on the assumption that the Scriptures are purely a 
naturalistic development, like the literature of Eng- 



444 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

land or America. For reasons doubtless satisfac- 
tory to themselves, but wholly inexplicable to com- 
mon-sense people, they insist on calling this product 
''divine," when, if they are correct, it is essentially 
human ; and on attributing its origin to an " in- 
spiration," whereas, if they are to be received ac- 
cording to their speech, it is the effect merely of an 
''expiration." Evolution, in its scientific form, pre- 
cludes the idea of incoming and of interposition, 
and shuts us up to the theory that everything has 
proceeded from within. A primordial atom con- 
taining the "potency and promise of every kind 
of life " — and all sacred writings as well — is all that 
is allowed by the advocates of this hypothesis for 
the rise and onward march of the cosmos. How 
anything like a revelation can be held by those 
who believe that everything moves from the lower 
to the higher, and never from the higher to the 
lower, it is impossible to explain, and must be left 
with other unanswerable questions in the limbo of 
mystery. I for one hold that it is a misuse of terms 
to describe a book as the gift of God when the a 
prio^d conception of the universe precludes the sup- 
position that he could have interfered for the en- 
lightenment of mankind. It is to be admitted, 
while some of the rationalistic higher critics are 
oblivious to their manifest solecism in speaking of 
the Bible as inspired when the possibility of in- 
spiration has previously been denied, they have the 
courage of their convictions, and repudiate from 
the beginning of their investigations the miraculous. 
Thus Prof Marcus Dods, of the Free Church of 
Scotland, refers to Pfleiderer's latest book: "The 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 445 

reader will hasten to acknowledge that he has struck 
to the heart of present theological difficulties, and 
has handled them with unfailing reverence and 
knowledge. . . History which speaks of mira- 
cles, ceases to be history. The miraculousness of 
Christ's person, his sinlessness, his resurrection, his 
divinity are discarded." This is reverence with a 
vengeance, and comprehends nothing less than the 
rejection of the unique content of the Scriptures. 
This is the school of criticism which I condemn ; 
for it renders forever incredible the religion of 
revelation. It begins, as I have already intimated, 
with the denial of the supernatural ; it declares 
that the law came after the prophets ; that the 
patriarchal stories are charming fictions or idealized 
history ; that Abraham probably had no real exist- 
ence, and that Moses had hardly any, if any, con- 
nection with the literature ascribed to him ; that 
monotheism was a natural, though sudden, devel- 
opment from polytheism during the eighth century 
before Christ ; and that the portions of Scriptures 
counted oldest are the newest, and that David was 
not the author of any of the Psalms. When it 
comes to deal with the New Testament, it either 
adopts the naturalistic theory of Paulus, or the 
mythical hypothesis of Strauss, or the romantic 
ideas of Renan, and insists on dating the Gospels 
at a period long after their reputed authors lived. 
Throughout these various assumptions it is appar- 
ent that the end contemplated is the destruction 
of confidence in the supernatural ; and the advo- 
cacy of a religion freed from the supernaturalism 
involved in the incarnation and resurrection of 



44^ MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Christ and the inspiration and regeneration of 
man. 

But how far have these extreme notions suc- 
ceeded in making converts, how far have they won 
the favor of the educated classes, and do the signs 
of the times point to their ultimate adoption ? In 
answering this complex question, or series of ques- 
tions, I feel safe in saying that a reaction has set in 
against this particular school of higher criticism ; 
and if this is the case, however it may have pre- 
vailed among scholarly people in the immediate 
past, its influence is likely to decline in the future. 
It has been definitely established by the Tel el- 
Amarna tablets that writing was common in Egypt 
and Canaan before the exodus ; it has been proven 
that the Hebrews already had a literature before 
800 B. c. ; it has been shown conclusively that 
Moses had more to do with the construction of the 
law-codes than rationalistic critics are willing to 
allow ; it also has been made clear that the idea of 
Welhausen in ascribing more than one-half of the 
Old Testament to the times of Ezra is far-fetched 
and untenable ; and it has been demonstrated that 
the Psalms could have been composed prior to the 
Babylonian captivity, and that there is nothing un- 
reasonable in the contention that as King David 
organized a system of temple semces requiring 
singers, he very likely supplied them with the songs. 
And as far as the New Testament is concerned the 
trend of thought is against the rationalists ; for all 
efforts have failed to change the world's estimate of 
the historical Christ ; and the tendency is to recog- 
nize John as the author of the fourth Gospel. 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 447 

As their several fortified positions have been cap- 
tured, the impression has steadily grown that the 
anti-supernatural critics have gone altogether too 
far, that they have assumed much more than they 
could make good, and that their repeated contra- 
dictions and complacent disregard of evidence, have 
fatally discredited their cherished hypotheses. It 
is now likewise coming clearly to be perceived that 
their fundamental assumption, to which all of their 
reasoning is made to bend, necessarily deprives the 
Bible of everything like real authority; for how 
can a book be endued with Divine authority when 
it has simply been evolved from the human con- 
sciousness, and is not only misleading in its his- 
torical representations, but is unphilosophical in its 
cardinal doctrines? If the supernatural is merely 
a fiction of superstition, then it follows that the 
Scriptures are the product exclusively of natural- 
istic forces ; and if they are the product of such 
forces, then they cannot speak to man with the 
voice of a king empowered to command and to 
exact submission. 

Against the evangelical school of criticism this 
grave objection does not rest. Its supporters do 
not begin by denying the miraculous. They do 
not insist that evolution, with its "survival of the 
fittest," and its law of "natural selection," is suffi- 
cient to account for the origin of the Bible. They 
hold that revelation is a reality ; that it proceeded 
from God ; that it was imparted by the Holy 
Spirit ; and they differ from the traditionalists only 
on questions of inferior moment. Verbal inspiration 
they discard, and they lay much stress on the national 



448 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

development of Israel, and note how the spiritual 
development of the people was more or less deter- 
mined by various stages of the former, and they 
contend that some of the sacred writers drew on 
pre-existing documents for part of their materials. 
They lay down the principle that the Divine help 
was always measured by human need and was never 
extended in such a way as to supersede human in- 
telligence and activity. Therefore they maintain 
that in preparing the Bible its authors had to seek 
information, accumulate facts, and were never freed 
from the necessity for personal inquiry. Just as in 
our times we receive aid from on high in interpret- 
ing the divine word, but must bring to the task 
every available means within our reach, so in the 
past prophets and apostles were anointed and en- 
lightened of God, but were not relieved from the 
obligation^ to trace ''the course of all things accu- 
rately from the first." The Creator honors the 
creature, and in making known new laws he does 
not set aside those he has inwrought into the nature 
he has made. While I do not wish to be under- 
stood as affirming that the assistance vouchsafed to 
us in ascertaining the mind of the Spirit is identi- 
cal with that extended to the men chosen to dis- 
close the mind of the Spirit, the analogy still holds 
good that in both instances human endeavor is not 
disregarded in any of God's gracious interpositions. 
From these representations it is apparent that the 
evangelical higher critics differ from the so-called 
traditionalists on the method of revelation rather 

1 Luke I : ^. Revised version. 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 449 

than on its ultimate source. They are at one with 
the most rigid of the older school in affirming that 
the Scriptures were given by inspiration ; and they 
must therefore be exonerated from the suspicion 
that they have diminished their authority. Method 
does not impair or annul authority. A monarch 
may make known his will by letter or by proclama- 
tion or by the mouth of a herald ; but its binding 
force is not destroyed by the agency employed or 
by the means adopted. So the Almighty might 
have communicated his will through a volume pre- 
pared in heaven and let down on earth complete in 
every particular ; or he may have used holy men at 
different times, under varying conditions, to speak 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; and in 
the last instance the messages would have been as 
truly his as in the first. On either hypothesis the 
authority of the Bible remains intact. This I am 
sure will be admitted without misgiving when we 
recall the meaning of the term "authority." Dr. 
Martineau says it signifies ''that we are spoken to 
by another and a higher in such a way as to strike 
home and wake echoes in ourselves, and so the 
speech is instantly transferred from external attesta- 
tion to self-evidence. ' ' Perhaps in some such way we 
are to understand Professor Max Miiller's pregnant 
word, ''Truth makes revelation, not revelation 
truth." So speaks the Bible to the human intel- 
lect and to the conscience. As Coleridge phrased 
it, there is something in the book "that finds us." 
That something strikes home, convinces, compels 
attention and concurrence. We do not need to go 
outside in search of evidences, and we bow before 

2D 



450 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

alleged revelations because they carry with them 
the indwelling witness to their veraciousness. No 
criticism which does not at the outset repudiate the 
possibility of supernatural disclosures, can obscure 
or invalidate this kind of authority. It asserts 
itself, proclaims and manifests itself in the divine 
word, whether it is believed that that word was 
progressively unfolded under manifold human lim- 
itations, or was instantaneously completed by a 
single creative fiat 

As criticism legitimately conducted does not im- 
pair the authority of revelation, neither does it 
diminish its grandeur nor detract from its influence. 
This should be carefully noted. We are told that 
the book has suffered irreparably at the hands of 
its new expounders, that it has lost immeasurably, 
and that having been deprived of so many excel- 
lencies it is gradually sinking in rank and dignity. 
The friends who speak or write in these doleful 
strains are careful to avoid specifications and con- 
fine themselves to generalities. Consequently it is 
not easy to reply to their depressing representations. 
But if we try to imagine just what they mean, and 
if we look at the whole subject in every conceivable 
light, I do not think we shall find any grounds for 
their dismal belief Let us then pursue this in- 
quiry, and see whether they are not yielding to 
misconceptions and baseless fears. 

The extraordinary unity of the Bible has here- 
tofore been counted one of its most distinctive 
glories. That a volume should have been prepared 
by so many writers, so widely separated by time 
and varying conditions, and yet its coherence have 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 45 1 

been preserved, has frequently been described as 
an unparalleled literary phenomenon. The sporadic 
authorship of the book, whose several parts are as 
distinct as the earth, the ocean, and the stellar 
heavens, has suggested to many minds an origin 
in common with that of the universe, which in 
various ways it resembles. But does not the 
method of evangelical criticism render all this 
plainer than it was before, and rather intensify than 
weaken the force of the argument grounded therein ? 
It makes very conspicuous the human element, re- 
lates it to varying and distinct seasons, leaves each 
author to his own freedom of action, and makes 
perfectly clear the independence of the contribu- 
tors from reciprocal personal influences. And yet 
the product of this literary co-partnership, carried 
on without pre-arrangement or possible interchange 
of opinions, is so unique and so strikingly homo- 
geneous as to suggest the oversight of a unifying 
mind~the mind of the Divine Spirit. It has been 
more than once asserted that the indestructibility 
of the Bible is as wonderful as its harmonious de- 
velopment. 

Diocletian on the " Feast of the Terminalia," 
February 23, A. d. 303, determined to put an end 
to Christianity, and decreed as a step toward the 
consummation of his scheme, that the sacred writ- 
ings should be destroyed. Multiplied copies were 
given to the flames, and yet, like the sacred bush 
that glowed and blazed and was unconsumed, the 
volume survived the fire. It was perpetuated ; but 
paganism succumbed and finally perished. Since 
then numerous have been the attempts to quench 



452 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

the heavenly light flashing from the earthly lamp. 
None of these mad enterprises has succeeded. 
Neither inquisitor nor infidel has prevailed against 
the precious treasury of truth. No weapon formed 
against it has prospered. And now comes the 
evangelical higher critic, reverent and thorough, 
not aiming primarily to pull down but to build up, 
subjecting the volume to the most searching inquiry, 
fearlessly examining its claims, resolutely pushing 
his investigations, and hesitating not to look all dif- 
ficulties in the face, and deliberately announcing 
as the result of his unrestrained examination that 
the Bible is the very word of God. For it to have 
escaped destruction from the fires of persecution 
is remarkable ; but that it should have maintained 
its rank and dignity in the presence of modern 
scrutiny and independent study of its every claim 
and assumption is astounding and reassuring. In- 
stead of undermining confidence, the outcome of 
the ordeal through which it has passed has only 
confirmed conviction as to its permanence and the 
divinity of its origin. The higher critics them- 
selves being witness, the Apostle Peter was war- 
ranted in his magnificent faith : ''The grass wither- 
eth, and the flower fadeth ; but the word of the 
Lord abideth for ever. And this is the word of 
good tidings which was preached unto you." 

It ought to be clearly discerned in this connec- 
tion that the method of procedure of these students 
and their findings do not alter in the least the stu- 
pendous content of revelation, nor challenge its 
ability to mold the literature, exalt the life, and con 
serve the liberties of races and nationalities. Their 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 453 

inquiries have not darkened the sun ; and if they 
have disclosed here and there a spot, they have 
still left the luminary as resplendent as before. 
Every essential glory of doctrine or of precept re- 
mains in undiminished brightness and beauty. 
Whatever objections may lie against inspiration, 
they are no stronger according to the critics than 
according to the traditionalists. Their answer de- 
mands the same terms whether undertaken by one 
school or the other. The commanding and faith- 
compelling power of revelation is clearly manifest 
whatever may be the theory regarding the mode of 
its disclosure. 

It is answered, that there are many things in the 
book that detract from its worth. For instance, it 
is charged that throughout it teaches the greater 
importance of the world to come than of the world 
that now is. As a result, it is urged, men neglect 
this life for the other. But as a matter of fact, this 
representation is thoroughly untenable. No na- 
tions look more after this earth than those that 
hold to the Scriptures and are supposed to be 
thinking only of heaven. Were Englishmen and 
Americans to bestow more time and energy on 
worldly goods than they do, they really would be 
fit for a lunatic asylum. More than this, the Bible 
does not teach as alleged. If the '' Divine Lega- 
tion " by Warburton is studied, it will be found 
that while heathen religions taught people to live 
for the future, Moses taught them to live for the 
present. The good bishop even goes so far as to 
leave it doubtful if the Jews believed in immortality 
at all. But though this position is hardly defensible, 



454 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

certainly his work shows the supreme position of 
temporalities in the economy of Israel. The same 
is in some degree true of the Christian faith. Its 
precepts, commands, and labors relate measurably 
to this world, and some of its hopes are bounded 
by time. In redeeming the soul it is also sanctify- 
ing earthly existence and planning for a new or- 
ganization of society. But could it be shown that 
this interpretation of what it contemplates is erro- 
neous, and that its only business in the world is to 
save men and women for another world, the ani- 
madversion would not be affected one way or the 
other by higher criticism or by lower. The objec- 
tion to the alleged aim of rehgion is not removed 
by belief in the verbal inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures ; neither is some other theory regarding the 
method of revelation responsible for what the rev- 
elation inculcates or commands. 

It is especially important to realize this when con- 
fronting the accounts of wickedness perpetrated 
by all kinds of men and preserved in the sacred 
annals. Indeed, I sometimes think that what are 
called the moral difficulties of the Scriptures are 
less, and more readily disposed of, by the new 
school than the old, as its discriminations between 
what is of God and what is of man are clear and 
helpful. Then it reminds inquirers, that the Bible 
should be viewed both as a history and as a revela- 
tion. As the former it must either misrepresent 
humanity or record some of its sad deflections 
from purity and rectitude. Only a malicious mind 
will insinuate that the witness approves or counte- 
nances what he describes. Nor should it be over- 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 455 

looked that as a revelation It had to pass through 
human minds as ideas flow with the ink through 
the stylographic pen ; and surely it ought not to 
excite wonder if in some instances the pen sput- 
tered and the ink stained the page, as when Balaam 
and Solomon became the medium of divine com- 
munication with the race. 

A book is to be judged not by the vices and 
crimes detailed, but by the way in which they are 
presented. If they are so described as to fascinate 
the reader and lead him to their cultivation and 
perpetration, then the volume is corrupt and ought 
not to be tolerated. This, however, cannot be 
fairly charged against the Scriptures. He who 
meditates upon their disclosures of frailty, cruelty, 
and bloodshed, is rather filled with horror of these 
things than incited to their imitation. Virtue has 
ever been fostered by this body of religious litera- 
ture, and as long as this is the case, no one can 
seriously believe that it countenances anything 
morally unsound or unlovely. That men should 
be inspired to record the imprecations and the mis- 
doings of important personages is one thing; but 
that the guilty parties should be inspired to breathe 
out such curses or work such deeds is another ; and 
this difference is made transparently plain by the 
critics, whatever may in this respect be true of the 
traditionalists. 

The perplexed and the. skeptical who have been 
tempted to abandon the Bible altogether because 
of the disquieting methods of the critics, should 
consider that its decisive influence on life, litera- 
ture, and liberty has created an argument in favor 



456 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

of its divine origin which no account of its histor- 
ical development not thoroughly anti-supernatural 
can invalidate. It is important that this should 
be fully realized by the men of to-morrow; for 
fresh and startling statements may be made in the 
future and no adequate answer be at hand ; but 
if a just estimate is entertained of the immense 
value of the book, faith will suffer no serious shock. 
Not a few persons, especially young people, have 
lost confidence because they have had no com- 
prehensive knowledge of what the Bible has been 
to society. Could they only have perceived its 
intimate relation to the dearest interests of hu- 
manity, they would simply have set its incontestable 
services over and against the suspected flaws in its 
credentials, and would have rested satisfied in the 
conviction that the first more than neutralized and 
outweighed the second. It is well then that my 
youthful readers should be put in the way of sup- 
plying themselves with this effective antidote. And 
this may be done without attempting any very ex- 
haustive treatment of the subjects involved. 

It should be remembered that revelation has ele- 
vated the whole life of man by representing him as 
made in the image of the Creator and as endowed 
with immortality. At a time when he was counted 
as only a little higher than the cattle on the hills, 
and when upward of a hundred thousand human 
beings were being slowly done to death each year 
in rearing the monumental edifices of ancient Egypt, 
and when both the individual and his deity were 
regarded as belonging to the State, doctrines were 
disclosed, resulting in a government which reversed 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 45/ 

all this, which recognized the slave as a brother, de- 
nounced oppression, and demanded that the one 
God should be worshiped as the owner of the citizen 
and of the entire nation, with its rulers, as well. 
Compare the estimate placed on man by the sover- 
eigns and civilization of the Nile valley, or by 
Babylon and Persia, with that inculcated by He- 
brew lawgivers and prophets, and his degradation 
under the former and his elevation under the latter 
will stand out in bold relief He was even more 
highly e£ teemed in the days of Moses than he was 
centuries later in pagan communities governed by 
such wretches as Caligula, to whom divine homage 
was rendered by the people. Even in lands un- 
blessed by Bible light at the close of the present 
century, his position is one of painful humiliation 
and suffering. 

The book that reproduces the exalted and un- 
approachable excellence of Jesus Christ is unique, 
and in moral power necessarily ranks high above 
all others. Your Goethes, your Carlyles, your 
Rousseaus, and your Welhausens, concede all this. 
That one character has never been equaled even 
in the realm of fiction, and in the domain of fact 
it is counted a miracle. Nor has any other volume 
given to the world such ethics for man's govern- 
ment, such assurances for man's hope, and such 
atonement for man's guilt. The moral magnitudes 
of the gospel are stupendous, its spiritual principles 
are dazzling. There we have a love as broad as 
the needs of sinful man, and an expiation as effi- 
cacious as the love by which it is inspired. The 
entire Bible is a book of immensities. An infinite 



458 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



God, an immeasurable grace, an immortality of 
existence, and man the creation of the one, the 
happy subject of the other, and the heir of the 
third, is invested with a dignity and glory undreamed 
of in the creeds and philosophy of ancient times 
and equally strange to the heathen cults of our own 
age. . 

The divine word is the very soul of every high 
thing that characterizes modern society. Even 
Huxley was perplexed to know where our inspira- 
tions to heroic conduct were to come from if its 
study should be abandoned. And what a dry, 
hard, cruel civilization ours would be without the 
softening influence of the sweet ideals embodied in 
Christ, in angels, in martyrs, in prayer, and in the 
hope of heaven. It is bad enough even with these 
like stars shining in the night ; but without them it 
would be intolerable. As it is, selfishness is not 
wholly master ; and though sufferings may be great, 
their victims have many reasons why they should 
not drink a little opium, or by some other means 
end a dull existence that has gradually fallen into 
despair. It ought to be remembered that the 
Scriptures have fostered the conscientious life in 
the race. Of the significance and beauty of such 
a life the ancient world indeed knew very little. It 
was practically born through the pangs and travail 
of the ''times of terror" known as the days of per- 
secution. When the nephew of Domitian surren- 
dered his dignities and abandoned the Roman 
standards rather than sacrifice to Caesar, '* the 
Roman eagles looked down on a new sight" — a 
man sacrificing everything most dear for conscience' 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 459 

sake. This has often been repeated since. Re- 
minders of what this homage to the supremacy of 
right means we have in the histor}^ of the Scotch 
Covenanters, in the disruption of 1743, and in the 
protests of Nonconformists against State interfer- 
ence in rehgion. From this has sprung whatever 
there is of honor, magnanimity, and integrity in 
our civihzation. The struggles 'for right against 
wrong, the unwiUingness to share in the sin of gov- 
ernments, the soHcitude for the moral future of the 
world, the generous judgment of our fellows, and 
the spirit of chivalrous devotion to the weak and 
friendless, are the direct outcome and manifestation 
of the higher view of human life disclosed and fos- 
tered by the divine word. 

Dean Farrar, in one of his Westminster sermons, 
declared that " inspiration awakens inspiration " ; 
and he illustrated his thought by showing how the 
great poets had been moved by the Bible to write. 
Unquestionably sacred literature has been the crea- 
tor of other literatures. It is the seed whence has 
grown a manifold and luxuriant vegetation. The 
East has produced many volumes on religion ; but 
they would have been unknown to the West had 
not Christian scholars, moved by the enlightened 
desire to inquire which is born of sympathy with 
our Scriptures, translated them into various Euro- 
pean tongues. In this way the touch of heavenly 
truth has even quickened the corpse of Eastern 
lore and made it a living power in the earth. Surely 
the gentlemen who have determined to discredit 
the oracles of God ignore the place they occupy in 
the history of English and German letters. The 



46o 



MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 



^^ Nib e lung en' ^ and '^ Gudrun,'' with their heroines, 
Chriemhild and Gudrun ; the "Parzival," of Eschen- 
bach, regarded as the real harbinger of the Ref- 
ormation ; the ^^ Commedia,'" termed by thousands 
'' Divina,'' of Dante; and the strains of EngHsh 
poetry, from the rustic pipe of the plowman to 
Chaucer and Spenser, and then onward to the 
swelling notes of Milton and Shakespeare, are in- 
debted to the spirit of the Gospels. 

Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, in *' Harpers' Maga- 
zine," while pleading for the Bible to be read in the 
schools simply as a classic, emphasizes his argument 
by declaring that it is the book that has influenced 
our literature more than all others. He contends 
that history, essay, poetry, and fiction, cannot be so 
readily understood by a mind untaught in the word 
of God as by one versed in its stories and laws. 
Almost every high work in our language assumes 
some acquaintance with this precious book. 

An effort has been made of late to connect it 
with the cause of tyranny. Men have arisen who 
have stigmatized it as the enemy of freedom ; and 
popular writers have tried to prove that liberty of 
thought has only followed unbelief Such represen- 
tations are contradicted by history. Plato's *' Repub- 
lic" does not sustain them ; neither are they counte- 
nanced by Cicero or Seneca. These celebrities are 
often extolled as though they anticipated and almost 
ushered in the dawning of the better time ; and yet 
with them the State and its divinities were above 
the citizen, and could coerce him if he objected to 
the official worship. Even near to our own day 
Thomas Hobbes was not an ardent supporter of 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 46 1 

soul liberty. According to his philosophy, the 
king is the freeman, and others are bound to yield 
obedience. Gibbon despised democracy and strenu- 
ously opposed the movement in favor of emanci- 
pation. No ; the friends of human enlargement 
are to be found in the opposite camp ; with Savon- 
arola, with the Lollard preacher, John Ball, who 
raised the banner of revolt on behalf of the serfs ; 
with the Germans, Miinzer and Rothmann, who 
led in the Peasants' War; and with the ministers 
and the churches who made possible the English 
revolution of 1688 and the American revolt of 
1776. 

To this it may be answered that there are clergy- 
men now who would invoke the law to prevent the 
most brilliant of infidels from assailing the Scrip- 
tures. Admitted. They are, however, exceptions, 
and not the rule. Such Protestant inquisitors are 
under the delusion that has grown of late that minis- 
ters are detectives and policemen set apart to enforce 
the law of the Commonwealth. This is a miscon- 
ception. The true doctrine is that men must meet 
their own responsibilities and that ecclesiastical 
coercion is futile and iniquitous. Hence the Bible 
is the real Magna Charta of humanity. The more 
it is understood the less tyranny will prevail. It 
has evermore enlarged the mind, and in so doing 
has enlarged the sphere of actions and promoted 
the personal independence of the individual. And 
judged therefore in this manner its influence is un- 
paralleled in beneficence and grandeur. 

None of the extravagancies of some higher critics, 
nor their revolutionaiy theories, should be permitted 



462 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

for one moment to shake the confidence of intelli- 
gent youth in a volume of such surpassing power 
and energy. Well may its achievements in the 
domain of practical life be regarded as its sufficient 
vindication from the objections to its mighty claims, 
suggested in the skeptical world of speculative 
thought. And if it is still worthy of reverence 
and trust, then the religion it reveals must likewise 
be "worthy of all acceptation." The two go to- 
gether. If the first is credited, the second ought 
not to be rejected. We must not divide what God 
has joined together. I find myself, therefore, on 
closing this last Message to the men of to-morrow, 
entreating them to receive the Lord Jesus Christ 
as their Prophet, Priest, and King. Much may be 
accomplished in this world by human energy, much 
by intelligence and morality ; but the highest and 
the best can only be wrought through the grace 
of him whose coming into the earth overthrew 
empires, suppressed diabolical civilizations, and 
founded the everlasting kingdom of truth and 
righteousness. The coming century will be barren 
in everything that has beautified recent times if the 
Saviour is not crowned its Sovereign ; and indi- 
vidual careers, however they may excel in other 
things, will be poor, base, and sordid, if he is not 
their inspiration and high ideal. To-morrow will 
not be what it ought to be unless the Holy One is 
honored by the youth of to-day. 

And how, without his presence, can the world to 
come be calmly contemplated ? There is a morrow 
beyond to-morrow and toward it we are drifting, 
yea, are being rapidly borne as by the surging 



RECEIVING THE RELIGION OF REVELATION 463 

irresistible floods that make up the overwhelming 
rush of Niagara. From the brink will your soul 
leap up in iridescent, immortal beauty, or will it 
plunge in the abyss beneath? For this life and 
the other the Lord Jesus Christ is the truest and 
surest protector and pioneer. Let him go before 
you, ever, ever leading. The story of Sir Lancelot 
seeking the holy grail has still its lesson in these days 
of self-reliance and of self-glory. Easier to fight 
than to trust is in reality the burden of the legend. 
And yet earth is only fully conquered and heaven 
truly won and the glorious vision of the sacred 
vessel only fulfilled when we abandon our own 
weapons and confide in the redeeming grace of 
another. Read old Sir Thomas Mallory's account 
of what befell the Christian knight: *'So it befell 
upon a night, at midnight, that he arrived at a 
castle, which was ' rich and fair, and there was a 
postern that opened toward the sea, and was open 
without any keeping, save two lions kept the entiy ; 
and the moon shined clear. Anon Sir Lancelot 
heard a voice that said, ' Lancelot, go out of this 
ship and enter into the castle, where thou shalt 
see a great part of thy desire.' Then he ran to his 
arms and armed him, and so he went unto the gate, 
and saw the two lions ; then he set hands to his 
sword and drew it. Then there came suddenly a 
dwarf, and smote him on the arm so sore that the 
sword fell out of his hand. Then he heard a voice 
that said, * O man, of evil faith and poor belief, 
wherefore believest thou more in thy harness than 
in thy Maker ? For he might more avail thee than 
thine armor, in whose service thou art set' " 



464 MESSAGES OF TO-DAY 

Trusting the harness more than the Lord is the 
common mistake of humanity. Armor and weapons 
of war are well enough ; but these are not equal to 
the lions in our pathway. These ** Messages " 
would not have been written had it not been need- 
ful to stimulate our youth to employ all necessary 
means ; and they ought not to have been penned 
if they had failed to utter afresh the warning against 
undue reliance on them. A dwarf may impede a 
giant panoplied in steel, if the giant is not for- 
tressed in the Almighty. But weakness itself be- 
comes strength if it leans on the everlasting arm. 
I then can only entreat you, my young friends, in 
the words of Tennyson, *' Doubt not, go forward ; 
if thou doubt, the beasts will tear thee piecemeal." 

Seven days I drove along the dreary deep, 
And with me drove the moon and all the stars ; 
And the wind fell and on the seventh night 
I heard the shingle grinding on the surge, 
And felt the boat shock earth, and, looking up, 
Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbouck, 
A castle like a rock upon a rock. 
With chasm-like portals open to the sea. 
And steps that met the breaker ; there was none 
Stood near it but a lion on each side 
That kept the entry, and the moon was full. 
Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. 
There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes 
Those two great beasts rose upright like a man, 
Each griped a shoulder, and I stood between ; 
And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice, 
" Doubt not, go forward ; if thou doubt, the beasts 
Will tear thee piecemeal ' ' ; then with violence 
The sword was dashed from out my hand and fell. 



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